Cave
by CindersAndSmoke
Summary: 4 yrs after the fall of Voldemort Harry awakens to find himself trapt in a cave, wandless and with no idea how he got there. To make matters worse, his prison mate is Draco Malfoy. The two find that to get out they must put aside their differences.
1. Awkward Introductions

This fanfic picks up with Harry four years after the defeat of Voldemort. Harry is 21 and lives with Ron, Hermione and Ginny in a small apartment in London. He and Ron both work for the ministry, Hermione is perusing S.P.E.W. and Ginny is a member of the holly head harpies (keeping in line with what JKR has told us about their post Hogwarts experience). Here however we veer off the course that JKR has set and explore a scenario that doesn't include the kids, etc. Some of the things I write may seem a little bit out of character but I tried to remain to true what I felt was the deepest sense of the characters while also allowing room for them to mature. Enjoy!

I acknowledge that none of these wonderful characters belong to me but are the property and creation of the always brilliant J.K. Rowlling. I thank her for building a world that is truly complex and beautiful for all of us to enjoy.

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Cave: Chapter 1

He awoke. Or did he? Try as he might to blink away the darkness, it relentlessly pursued his pupils. _This isn't my bed,_ he thought silently as he fingered the moist rocky ground beneath him. Thoughts and fear began to bubble to the surface of his newly conscious mind. Where was he? Who was he? The latter of the two questions proved to be the easiest to answer at the moment. _My name is Harry Potter, I am 21 years old, I Live with Ronald Weasley, Hermione Granger and__ my fiancée__Ginny Weasley,__ to in a small two bedroom apartment in London. I work for the Ministry of Magic as an Auror..._These and other self identifying facts tumbled through him as he tried to remember his own face and regain his bearings. _I defeated Voldemort four years ago, I was the Boy Who Lived, now I am the Man Who Killed._ Self awareness was hitting him like a brick wall.

Now the first matter remained to be dealt with. As his sight was clearly failing him, he decided to rely on his other senses. He swallowed back the fear that was bubbling up from his stomach; fear would not help him now. The wall he was leaning against seemed to be curved, hard and not at all smooth to the touch. Was he on a mountain? There were no stars above him and the air was stale and stagnant, not windy, so this was unlikely. He felt slowly upwards with trembling hands, raising them to trace the rocky outlines. They curved over him to form a moist ceiling. This was a cave. He could hear something that sounded like static in the distance, a radio maybe. Why would a radio be in a cave? No. Water. His mind jumped to a distant memory, a cave with a lake full of dead bodies, pallid skinned and vacant eyed. Without thinking, he grabbed for his wand but nothing was there. He searched in a panicked frenzy for it, breath quickening with every failed attempt to locate it. _In a cave, wandless, possibly dreaming,_ _alone, _was the new update to his sense of self. This would not be the first time he had had one of these dreams though he felt so much more aware of himself now than in the others. _Well, no use sticking around here,_ he thought and decided to quietly step forward.

He planted his barefoot onto a seemingly stable rock. He pushed in slightly to test it. It was wet and slick but otherwise static. After a few moments of deliberation, he shifted his weight onto it and immediately regretted the decision. He slid painfully to the rocky floor, slicing his left ankle and skinning the palms of his hands. The pain was sharp at first then dull and throbbing.

"Ah! Ow! Umph!" he was on the floor in an instant and as he felt for his ankle, he found it was covered in a warm sticky substance that he was only too familiar with. _In a cave, wandless, definitely not dreaming, and alone._ However just as he thought those words, a familiar voice echoed down the length of the cave.

"Who's there?" called the hoarse voice. It was low and gravely. Definitely that of a young man. The man cleared his throat and called out again, his voice echoing towards Harry. "I said, who's there?" this time he demanded with a little bit more force.

"That all depends on who's asking!" Harry called back tentatively not wanting to reveal himself quite yet. The voice was familiar but unrecognizable.

"Potter? Harry Potter, is that you?" called back the voice. It was trembling and sounded angry.

"Who wants to know?" Harry challenged. His heart was racing. He was injured, wandless and had no idea who was advancing towards him. He felt about for a sharp rock to wield.

"Really now, after all of these years you don't recognize my voice?" the response came back trembling but almost mocking. In an instant, a face came to his mind but no name. Blond hair, grey eyes that sat atop high set cheek bones and a pointed sharp jaw line. Tall and lithe. The name was escaping him.

"Your name- I can't remember... but-"

"I was disowned. You won't be able to associate my last name with me. It's magically impossible. Think of my father and you will remember it." The voice shouted back sounding an odd combination of scared and bored.

"Lucius Malfoy... Draco? What the hell are you doing here? Where have you taken me?" Harry shouted. He got up and tried to feel his way towards the newly identified source of the voice.

"Where have I- what? No! I haven't done anything, Potter!" Draco spat back in disgust. "I'm just as lost as you are right now and I don't appreciate these accusations!"

"Draco, I don't give a damn whether or not you _appreciate_ it!" Harry shouted.

"I don't particularly like your tone either." Draco concluded icily.

Harry was fuming. Here he was stuck goodness knows where with his boyhood nemesis, without a wand or any hope of having a useful fellow captive and Draco was complaining about the tone he was using to address him. Hatred was fusing with fear. Draco must be lying.

"I don't believe you for a goddam second, M-Draco!" he tried in vain to say his last name but found it to be impossible. "You're a disgusting piece of filth who couldn't tell the truth to save your own life!"

"Oh, Potter what the fuck do you know about me? Don't even try to pretend-"

"No actually I'm certain you could do it to save your own life, but anyone else's?" he felt as though he had the upper hand now.

"The truth does not save lives, you twit, it takes them," Draco finished quietly. Harry was infuriated by how calm he remained as though nothing that he said really affected him. Draco took advantage of this pause and continued, "You may not remember this but you almost lost your life in my house and if I hadn't lied and said that I didn't recognize you, you would be dead right now and you know it. I couldn't save you but I gave you the extra few seconds you needed."

"Yes, you did but you also tried to capture me afterwards! And how exactly did you know it was me?" Harry's voice was shaking with rage and doubt.

"Well, your eyes, no one has eyes like those."

"Draco, are you hitting on me?" Harry's mind was reeling at these new revelations. Why had Draco been disowned? And further more why was he here with Harry to begin with?

"Potter, you must be even more daft than the papers say you are these days."

"And you must be even dumber than I thought you were if you still read and believe the papers." To Harry's surprise the sound that met his comment was laughter. It was not a raucous cry by any means, just the slightest chuckle. He could feel his temper rising steadily. His fingers prickled with hot blood and his head felt light. "What are you laughing at," he tone was deadly and low, barely a whisper.

"It was a funny, socially critical comment, so I laughed. Listen, Potter I'm dreadfully tired of this game. The situation we are in could potentially be a very dire one," his tone was almost casual.

"Potentially?" Harry was incredulous.

"Yes. Potentially," he said, the boredom in his voice appearing once again. "It appears to me as though the only eminent threat to our health right now is one another. So why don't we put off our school yard fight to another time. Let's say, right after we find our way out of here? I'd be more than pleased to exchange insults with you then. And for goodness sake, please stop breathing so heavily, you'll use up all the oxygen."

Harry thought for a moment. This was simply too much. Draco's calm demeanor made Harry even more uneasy. For his entire life, he had acted upon his gut feeling and so far, it hadn't betrayed him. Now he was being told to stifle the very mechanism by which he had always survived. The feeling was like that of a hare caught in a hunters trap. _Run,_ his instincts told him, _run!_ But as things stood, he didn't even have a light to run towards. So with a heavy sigh, Harry tried to collect himself.

"I'm assuming you don't have a wand," Harry finally decided to say.

"And what if I do?"

"Well then I'll just have to take it from you won't I? It's no good having you running around with one when you've never demonstrated a propensity for using it," Harry said as he felt his way closer to Draco.

"Okay, okay! I was bluffing, no need to get so personal. Really though, Harry, you need to relax, you know that? Loosen up a little."

"Relax? I'm stuck here in a cave with someone who has tried to kill me-"

"I never tried to kill you!" this time there was an element of seriousness and strain in Draco's voice.

"Oh, bullshit, Draco. You damned well have!" Harry exclaimed noting that he had struck a nerve.

"No! Never tried to kill… capture, hurt, even torture but never kill, I- I couldn't do that," Draco finished with a quiet strength.

"Ummm… anyway, my situation is fairly dire I'd say," Harry ended.

"Well I'm in a similarly shitty situation, if I do say so myself. So since we have soooo much in common why don't we try to do some problem solving, eh? What's the last thing you remember before ending up… well, wherever we are?" Draco asked.

Harry's mind was buzzing with the ridiculousness of his situation. Perhaps he was dreaming after all! He had felt pain in his dreams before and plenty of it. He closed his eyes tightly and pushed himself to either wake up or take control over his environment. _Fly, Harry, fly!_ He willed himself, but despite his efforts, his feet remained firmly planted on the ground.

"Potter? Are you deaf? What is the last thing you remember?" Draco's flat drawl echoed through the cave.

"I don't know. I can't remember anything that feels recent, I know who I am and what I've done but the past feels fuzzy. I guess." His words trailed off awkwardly and he realized this with some discomfort. He suddenly felt violated. He had never (to his knowledge) had his memory compromised. "How about you?"

"Same, really," Draco said shortly.

"Well why don't you pick a memory that was particularly recent and momentous and start tracing forward from there?" Harry offered.

"Alright, I guess, um," Draco was quiet for a little while as though thinking. Harry wished more than anything, more than even wishing to be out of the cave that he could see but the darkness remained as oppressive as ever. "I was sitting inside of a waiting room in the ministry to talk to Kingsley Shacklebolt-"

"What the hell were you doing there?" Harry asked in an affronted tone.

"Well if you'd let me finish, I would tell you." Draco's tone was suddenly frigid again. Harry couldn't help but be silenced by it. Draco cleared his throat and continued, "As I was saying, I had an interview with him to become an auror-"

"What?" Harry was plainly horrified. "First off, I'm the head of that department so you would have to go through me. Second, in the extremely unlikely event that Kingsley overrode my decision, I would have no choice other than to hand in my two weeks' notice so that I could pursue my lifelong wish of living with wild blast ended skrewts!"

"Well then I suggest you invest in some protective gloves at the very least because I was given the job during the interview." Draco paused for Harry's next reaction but was met with silence and so he continued. "I can offer some explanation, Potter. I by no means love muggles now but my father's views were well- just plain crude. As a kid, I thought it was cool in a way, like my dad was some kind of, oh, I don't know, war hero I suppose. But after he had been imprisoned, my feelings started to shift. It may seem strange coming from a Slytherin, but I just couldn't justify using human beings, magical or not as a means to an end, as good of an end as that may have seemed to be." He conclude quietly and seemed to feel as though this answered everything, but to Harry it only brought up more questions.

"You almost killed Katie, and Ron! You allowed Dumbledore to be killed! A snake doesn't stop hunting it just slithers in a different direction!" Harry's anger was growing at an exponential rate.

"And tell me, Potter, please what should I have done? Let Voldemort kill my mother, my father, me? Everyone whom I cared for?"

"I wasn't aware that you cared for anyone but yourself, actually."

"Well you're wrong! And if you remember correctly, I didn't kill anyone! Not Katie, not Ron, and whether or not you believe it, I had a chance to kill Dumbledore; I had a chance to and I couldn't! I couldn't look into his pitiful face and say the stupid words! And I paid a price for that, and paid it dearly. You know this is the truth," Harry could hear Draco breathing heavily a few feet away. "You battled Voldemort on a handful of occasions but you never had to spend 'quality time' with him, did you? That barely human atrocity spent a year living with me, in my house. He was cruel and terrible and had I been stupid enough to try to retaliate, hell had I even hinted as being a malcontent I would've had fifty different wands all pointed in me and my parents' direction screaming fifty different killing curses. So please, please do not lecture me on how valiantly I could've or should've acted. Even in the worst of times for you, you always had Weasley and Granger. I had no one. No one could be trusted and every one of them was waiting for me to fuck up or show the slightest sign of weakness so that they could use me as a stepping stone."

Harry thought for a long time and tried to come up with a new retort but was left speechless. The air around him was cool and kept sending chills down his back and he suddenly realized he was soaking wet. The sound of water dripping and moving in the background lulled him into a sense of calm. He closed his eyes to ease the tension in his temples and tried to picture himself floating away from the situation maybe to a steamy jungle somewhere in another hemisphere. There were flowers in full bloom around the edges of the lake that he was drifting in. They were huge and beautiful from being sun drenched. Madder and jessamy and amaranthine colored petals danced in the wind and fell lightly onto the rippling glassy surface of the water. Birds were singing mellifluous melodies and he tried to join in but didn't know the words. The air was laden with the delicate scent of fresh and wild fruits that he yearned to taste. And the sun, it was brilliantly bright and brought life to everything it touched. It illuminated everything. This is where he went these days when the world pressed in too hard.

"I was a child when you knew me. A handsome and gifted child but a child nonetheless," Draco's voice brought Harry back to the situation at hand with a jerking snap. Reality was dark and absurd. To his embarrassment, he realized that Draco's voice was choked up as his nose sounded stuffy as if he had been crying.

"So," Harry's voice cracked slightly, "what did you do after you got the job?"

"Oh, right," he said gathering himself back together and clearing his throat. "Well I went home to my apartment where I live by myself. I cooked a dinner of rice and vegetables, I think I may have thrown some chicken in there too, and I ate."

"You didn't call anyone by floo to tell them about the job? Or do anything that would've given your location or actions away?" Harry asked. Anything could be a clue as to how they ended up where they were.

"Harry, who would I have to contact?" the question was posed with the slightest tone of sadness but more so with humor.

Harry smiled slightly in spite of himself, forgetting for a moment that Draco could not see it and said, "Sorry, go on."

"Well, after I finished eating I had the dishes clean themselves and went to the bedside- it's a studio you see- and I picked up a book I had been reading on jurisprudence and the Wizengamot and finished it. It took longer than usual because there was a cat in the ally meowing incessantly and I kept trying to shew it away."

"A cat? What did it look like?" Harry asked.

"I don't know, it was fairly ordinary. Just a grey cat. We get a lot of them in the alleyway next to my apartment. I think that it was about eleven o'clock at night and I was pretty tired so I turned out my light and went to sleep. That's really the last thing that I remember. When I woke up I was here and that was maybe a half hour ago." He paused momentarily and Harry waited.

"Well I guess that doesn't shed much light upon anything, does it?" said Draco.

"No, not really," Harry responded feebly attempting humor with his tone.

"Well how about you?"

Harry thought for a moment. "I went to work with Ron, like I always do. It was grey out as usual but I remember it being particularly chilly for this late in the spring-"

"Mind sparing me the finer details, dear?" Draco chirped in a saccharine voice.

"The answers very well may lie in the finer details so yes, I would mind. Anyway, we got to work and reviewed the new pocket manual for aurors. It had some new spells in it that Ron and I didn't know so after editing it to our liking I pocketed an extra copy to study them. We checked out a couple of complaints that seemed linked to dark arts but found that in the first instance the damage was being cause by an out of control gnome infestation, I mean I had never seen one so bad, they were burrowed under the entirety of the hedge garden and-"

"Please, Potter, continue! I'm on the edge of my seat!" yawned Draco.

"Alright, alright," Harry snapped back not unkindly. "The second had been caused by a nasty neighbor, with no priors, who had dropped out of Hogwarts in their 4th year because of failing marks. They simply didn't have the knowhow to do dark magic-let alone get us into this cave- but we brought him in for questioning anyway. Found nothing except that he was angry at the woman next door for not keeping her cat out of his yard. He had tried to perform a spell that would make the cats paws too heavy to climb the fence but accidently set it on the entire cat that was rendered immobile. Silly stuff really. When we finished and set him his court date, for animal abuse of all things, I asked Ron if he wanted to get dinner with me. He couldn't because he was taking Hermione out to celebrate a bit of progress she had made with S.P.E.W."

"Why didn't you get something with Ginny? You two are still an item aren't you?" Draco said. His tone suggested an element of disinterest. Harry figured he was trying his hand at being polite and decided to accept the motion no matter how insincere.

"Yes, we are, engaged in fact. But she's out for the week, what with Quidditch tryouts being held and the recruiting. She's the captain this year, youngest one in the history of the team. They were recruiting in America and Canada this week. So I went down the alley to a sandwich shop and had a chicken salad sandwich. I ate half and it was delicious."

"By golly, that's where I bought my veggies! Perhaps it was something we ate!" Draco chimed with almost spastic mock enthusiasm.

"I mean, possibly, but unlikely," Harry said, honestly not wanting to discount anything. This was met with an exasperated sigh from Draco but Harry went on undeterred. "I brought the other half home with me and got into my apartment and sat down at the table and…"

"And ate it? Slowly? Savoring every last morsel I hope?"

"No, that's just it. My memory stops there," Harry said with genuine concern.

"Well, Potter, might I suggest that you take a break from the wacky tobaccy? It sounds to me like you have some serious memory issues there," drawled Draco.

"Oh shut up, this _is_ serious! I feel like my memory must have been compromised or something. I was unwrapping my sandwich but then things start to go dim. That's a tell tale sign of that spell and you should remember that if you're going to become an auror."

"Please, at least spare me the lecture." Draco's voice suggested that his patience was running thin. Harry thought it best for them to separate for a bit.

"Alright why don't we check the cave for possible exits. You walk that way, I'll walk this way."

"um, which way?" Draco chirped like an overly attentive student. Harry was briefly reminded of Hermione.

"Oh, just turn around and start walking!"

"Ow!" a thump indicated that Draco had hit something very hard with his head.

"Start walking, _carefully,_" he fought off the urge to say something rather rude and added, "try to see with your hands."

They set off in their opposite directions. Harry couldn't believe that this hadn't occurred to him earlier. He had been so taken with how he had gotten there that he didn't think to look for a way out. He stumbled blindly through the darkness and found that the tunnel was fairly consistent in height and width. Suddenly he came to a break in the wall. Tentatively he felt about the floor to make sure that the ground remained even. The ground was not only more even in this part of the cave but soft, like moss. It was a terrific relief to his bare feet and he felt about further until he reached a wall. From what he could tell, it was a circular 'room' for lack of a better word. It was about a body length and a half deep and two body lengths across.

Reluctantly he left it and continued to wonder on. Draco's words ran through his head kicking up the dust off of old memories as they went. A pompous ass, no doubt repeating words he had heard his father use on countless occasions, offering his hand in partnership (for it could not really be deemed a friendship) only to be publicly rejected. A blond haired ferret, red eyes bulging in terror as a grizzly looking imposter of a man toyed with it sadistically. A sneering warning aimed at his muggleborn best friend in the woods by the quidditch world cup. And lastly, platinum hair streaked unnaturally with crimson, water falling on a groaning boy with his stomach cut open in too many places to count, Harry's hand trembling with the guilty wand protruding from it like a small sword. He shook the memories off and continued down the tunnel.

After walking and stumbling for what he guessed was twenty minutes, he suddenly heard footsteps in the distance. He froze and so did they. Neither he nor the culprit spoke for what seemed like minutes. His heart raced as he decided to speak.

"Who's there?" he called out trying to sound more confident than he felt.

"Oh! Am I glad it's you for once!" called back Draco's voice. The two laughed nervously with relief. Harry told Draco what he had found and asked him for his report.

"Pretty much the same thing actually, only I also found a pond of sorts. It's sunken into the ground and there's water trickling into it, but I can't tell where from. It's fairly large, maybe a quarter of the size of a quidditch pitch. But the water comes up to the opening. I checked the entire perimeter. Nothing, no way out. Right next to it was the same kind of room you described. Then I walked for about ten or fifteen minutes and found you."

Harry felt his heart fall. Escape seemed dreadfully unlikely without a wand and venturing into the dark waters may have been more of a death sentence than staying put. Even still, he was alive and at the moment that's all that really mattered. He tried to remind himself that he had confronted death in more much immediate ways before but this offered little comfort; last time it was a sacrifice he had been prepared to make for those he cared deeply about, now he may never know why.

"Well," Draco began, "let's not start feeling sorry for ourselves just yet. We have a soft place to sleep and a water supply. Those are good things. I feel like whoever put us here didn't intend to kill us."

"That is, unless they expected us to kill each other," Harry said, unconvinced.

"Well, as I've always been rather contrary and stubborn, might I suggest that we not oblige? At least not until the confrontation is on our own terms." Harry could hear Draco shifting the rocks on the floor with his feet as he spoke. He couldn't be more than a few feet away from him.

"I'm not promising anything," Harry said but his voice was lighter than he expected it to be.

"Well then I promise to try not to be a complete brat, if you promise not to bash my head against the cave wall. Fair enough?" Draco's tone, while modestly dripping with sarcasm was also lightening now. Harry felt odd being able to talk to Draco like this. It didn't seem altogether unnatural which made him feel even stranger.

"Does that mean you'll still be a partial brat?" Harry asked.

"Oh, shut up and take what you can get for once," came back Draco's exasperated reply.

"Alright then, I agree not to bash your head in," this seemed fair to him.

"Excellent. So where do we go from here, then?"

Harry thought for a moment then said "why don't you bring me to the lake or pond or whatever it was you found. I'd like to check that out."

"Okay, come with me," Draco started to walk off in an unseen direction. Harry tried to catch up with him but tripped almost immediately in his rush. "Come with me _carefully_," Draco mocked and Harry was instantly glad that he had said nothing more hurtful when Draco had hit his head earlier. Very suddenly, he felt a hand on his arm pulling him up. Once standing the hand slid down his arm to his hand and clasped it firmly.

"Don't make more of this than it is," Draco said sounding slightly embarrassed. "It's just no good having you tripping all over the place when we're having a hard enough time as it is." They walked like this for several minutes, hand in hand stumbling through the complete darkness of the cave. Draco's hands were soft, Harry was startled to find himself realizing. Soft and warm and dry. The occasional stumble forced them to collide and Harry realized that Draco's clothing was rather damp like his own. He felt it was best not to comment on the awkwardness of walking hand in hand through the darkness. It wasn't as though it was torture. Indeed, he found that he couldn't really describe how it made him feel aside from confused. All of his preconceived notions about Draco were finding themselves being challenged very suddenly. _In a cave, wandless, definitely not dreaming, holding hands with Draco M-_ but once again, he found he couldn't even think his last name. Perhaps this could be a topic for conversation, albeit a potentially touchy one. He would have to handle it very gently.

"So, you said you had been disowned," the hand he was holding tensed momentarily then softened. "If you don't mind me asking, what happened exactly?"

"Are you asking out of curiosity or cruelty?" he asked.

"Are those my only choices?" Harry asked in an effort to make light of the conversation.

"Well, I know that it's not out of concern," Draco sounded as though he was speaking through clenched teeth.

"Well if concern is impossible, then curiosity, I suppose," said Harry, knowing full well that that was exactly why he was asking. After a few moments, Draco sighed deeply and began.

"My father had told me he had never killed anyone. I was curious and I asked him when I was about seventeen. It was after the fall of the Dark Lord and he was about to go to trial. I wanted to know the truth before everyone else did. I'm not sure why it mattered so much at the time. He said he would be fine and that he only aided as a social connection of sorts. I believed him, perhaps naively. I _wanted_ to believe him. As you know it was subsequently proven through eyewitness accounts, veriteserum and in the end, his own wand that he had cast spells responsible for killing at least three muggle families and several wizards. That wasn't counting spells that could have been done when the Dark Lord took his wand away.

"I was absolutely horrified," Draco continued in the same unnervingly calm tone, "Not only had he murdered innocent people- children even- but he had lied to me. I was forced to re-evaluate my feelings towards him. How had the man that I had fondly called father been able to murder children," his voice started to strain but he quickly recomposed himself. "I went to see him after his sentence had been handed down. He was remorseless and felt as though the penalty of life was too harsh. I told him that if the dementors were still around he should have been given a Kiss, that life in prison was the second best option for him and that death would've been too kind. So he called me a traitor and disowned me. The end."

Despite the cold matter-of-fact way in which Draco had told the story Harry felt far sadder for him than he had ever thought to be possible. His mind drifted back to a distant memory of emotions he had once painfully felt: the conflict that he had faced upon finding that his father had been so terrible to Snape. His whole world had crumbled. He had felt as though he came from something pure, good and extraordinary and all of that had been shattered to him in those days. The idea that his father had flaws had been too much for him to bear. This of course had to be so much worse. If Harry had felt betrayed and shamed by a mere memory of his father then Draco must have been destroyed by the extensive courtroom evidence and public humiliation. And yet here he was, beside him, walking hand in hand speaking so casually about it that he may as well have been reading a story from the paper.

"So do you not have a last name now or something?" Harry asked finally.

"Don't be stupid, of course I have a last name. I took my mother's maiden name, as it was the easiest. I am now Draco Black. Much more charming than Draco Malfoy if I do say so myself."

Harry didn't respond to the last comment as the sound of water was getting louder. But before they reached it, Draco's hand jerked Harry to a stop.

"This is the room I was telling you about," Draco pulled Harry in. "Watch your head it comes down rather low." Harry could feel the rocky ceiling just over his head grazing his hair. Once again his feet found solace in the soft mossy texture that ostensibly carpeted the 'rooms.' He bent down, still holding Draco's hand and felt the floor.

"I feel like that must've been intentional," Draco commented almost to himself.

"What?" said Harry looking back towards the voice, seeing nothing.

"The floors in here are so soft," it sounded like he was sitting down, "like we're supposed to sleep in here. There are two of them apparently so I wouldn't be surprised. I mean I wouldn't have minded a pillow or two but it's better than the rocks, I suppose." He was sitting close enough to Harry for their knees to be touching. Harry felt a strange tingling in his stomach but was sure it wasn't discomfort. Being able to touch someone else, no matter who it was, made the darkness somehow more bearable and a little bit less frightening. It was like Draco's knee was a point of reference through which he could gain his bearings. He figured it didn't count for anything as long as he couldn't see Draco's face. That probably would have made this awkward, but at the moment the comfort was welcome. Draco stood quietly and the contact was gone as quickly as it had been established.

Grabbing Harry's hand to pull him up Draco spoke, "come on, let me show you the water before we relax." Harry acquiesced and followed. The sound of trickling water became louder and louder though it was never as oppressive as the darkness. It echoed and bounced off of the walls of the cave like children at play and its sound was more relieving than maddening. It was nice to hear a noise that was not cause by himself or by Draco, he thought as he closed his eyes again willing himself to see where he was stepping. They stumbled to the edge of the water and sat next to it knees touching once again. Draco spoke first.

"You don't mind do you? The knees thing-" he started tentatively before Harry interrupted.

"No, not at all. I mean I'm not excited about it or anything but I think it helps somehow," he trailed off awkwardly once more. He seemed to have acquired a knack for this.

"All you needed to say was 'no,' Potter."

They sat there for a long time, not sure what to do with themselves next. All of their options seemed to have been exhausted. Harry felt as though he was doing fairly well considering the situation he was in. he had accepted the fact that he was not in danger in any immediate sense, though the idea that his memory had been violated still upset him. The idea of his home being violated upset him more. As he cleaned his wounded ankle with the chilled water he wondered if Ron or Hermione had taken note of his absence yet, or indeed if anyone had. He wondered if they were safe. Ginny surely was, as she was far away somewhere in the North American continent. But then, he thought, she probably would come home once she found out that Harry had gone missing. With Ginny's freckled face in his mind he felt his insides twist. When he did get out of here, or rather if he found a way out of here what state would he find the world in upon his return. It had taken a lot to accept the weight of the world's safety on his shoulders and now that he had is was becoming increasingly hard to realize that while he had been chosen to alleviate one of its more pressing problems he could hardly tackle them all. Prejudice still ran rampant through communities whether they were magical or not. The pressure on his temples began to increase again. As if sensing this Draco finally spoke.

"I'm exhausted from all of this," he said yawning deeply. "Really this hasn't been the worst day of my life but certainly one of the more traumatic. Wouldn't you agree?"

Harry nodded, then realizing once more that Draco could not see him, grunted in an agreement. His head was spinning and upon standing he felt dizzy. Draco once again felt for his hand and upon finding it pulled him in the direction of the room closest to the water.

"Why don't we stay in the same one tonight? Just in case something happens, we can both wake up, safety in numbers and all that," suggested Harry logically. If the idea of vulnerably sleeping in the cave made his stomach upset then the idea of sleeping alone threatened to make him sick. Draco would hardly be his first choice as a roommate but as the situation stood he genuinely did not seem to be a threat. While he could hardly say that he trusted the other man, he also hardly felt threatened by him. Physically, from what he remembered he was taller and slightly broader than he was and seeing as they were both wandless, a physical confrontation would be foolish of Draco to pursue.

"If you want to," Draco said. His voice betrayed none of his feelings on the issue but did not sound offended either so Harry admitted that he wanted to. He sank gratefully into the mossy room, once more affording his feet respite from the rocky path they had been walking. He laid down on his back and found himself almost immediately relaxed. He had worried that it would be uncomfortable and though his bed at home surpassed it without much effort, it was not the least comfortable place Harry had ever rested. He heard Draco settle about a foot and a half away from him and was comforted, not for the first or last time by the fact that he was not alone in the cave.

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Thanks are due to thebrunnetteone for the BETA!

The second chapter is very nearly done, so expect that in another week, maybe less!

Please comment, this is the first fanfic that I have ever shared with the public so feedback is welcome!

I already have the outline written out for the entire story but feedback can be taken into account as far as character development and questions!


	2. A Light at the Beginning of the Tunnel

Sorry for taking so long to post this chapter! My BETA and I were both having connectivity issues!

This fanfic picks up with Harry four years after the defeat of Voldemort. Harry is 21 and lives with Ron, Hermione and Ginny in a small apartment in London. He and Ron both work for the ministry, Hermione is perusing S.P.E.W. and Ginny is a member of the holly head harpies (keeping in line with what JKR has told us about their post Hogwarts experience). Here however we veer off the course that JKR has set and explore a scenario that doesn't include the kids, etc. Some of the things I write may seem a little bit out of character but I tried to remain to true what I felt was the deepest sense of the characters while also allowing room for them to mature. Enjoy!

DISCLAIMER1:I acknowledge that none of these wonderful characters belong to me but are the property and creation of the always brilliant J.K. Rowlling. I thank her for building a world that is truly complex and beautiful for all of us to enjoy.

DISCLAIMER2: This story is a slasher between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. There will be EXPLICT ADULT CONTENT so if this makes you uncomfortable I would like like to warn you before hand. I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't read but simply that there is sexual content, harsh language, and to a lesser degree violence.

SPOILERS: P/SS, CoS, PoA, GoF, OotP, H-BP, and DH

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The Cave, ch. 2

Every word, every inflection of his tone was calculated. From the first impression he made to the last he would leave on every person he came into contact with, everything was thought out and fully concocted at the moment of first sight. People in general were very easy for Draco to read. This was a talent he had gained from watching his father carefully throughout his childhood. As a result, they tended also to be very easily manipulated. His intuition and guile had guided him throughout most of his life fairly accurately. He had always thought of his relationships to the people around him as various mathematic equations; solve for X and you win a prize. He knew what to say and who to say it to and how they would most likely react. Even Voldemort, while impossible to manipulate was completely understood by Draco upon their first meeting. He immediately knew that no one was important to the thing standing before him. He knew he was not being honored for his loyalty but punished for his father's faults. He knew he was being used.

Throughout his existence, only a handful of people had not reacted to him the way he had wanted them to and even fewer could not be read. His father was one of these people who had evaded his talent consistently. Ever since he could crawl, he had tried to learn his father's reactions. Each time he thought he understood, it seemed his father would break stride and turn in a different direction. The pattern was seemingly random at the time. Now that he thought back on it though, many of the seemingly contradictory things his father had said made complete sense in hindsight. His thoughts graced a particularly painful and embarrassing memory.

After chastising him for being far too attached to his mother, Draco's father had gone on at length about the value of patriarchy in the wizarding community, expounding upon why male dominance and male bonding were essential to the infrastructure of wizarding culture. Draco had found himself relieved by the blandishment, at the time being nine years old and completely untaken by females. He had gone to Crabbe's house to play and had kissed him on the cheek believing that his feelings were not only natural but also to be encouraged. After his father had found out, he had been locked in a closet for three days. He remembered crying to his mother to let him out and each cry earned him another four hours of solitude in the closet. Dobby, their house elf at the time was his only visitor, appearing occasionally to bring him a tray of cold food. At first, he had delighted in the company, but found quickly that the stupid elf had been ordered not to speak to him and would disappear as quickly as he had arrived leaving Draco to wonder if he had been there at all. He learned his lesson there but hardly understood at the time that what he wanted to engage in was actually the antipathy of what his father had been talking about.

The second person, who he seemed to be immune to his specious ways, was the boy now laying next to him. Harry had reacted contrarily to everything Draco had thrown at him since the day they had first met. Harry had also been the only person who had ever brought down his walls. These walls were up against all outsiders, not just Harry, as a first line of social defense. He had perfected the art of erecting them in his sixth year when he learned Occlumency. What truly scared him was the lack of effort Harry did this with. It only seemed to take a singular volley of banter to destroy the mortar and bricks that masked his eyes. Draco found his voice impossible not to answer to. He found himself constantly re-evaluating and reconsidering his predetermined next steps, often times just giving in and revealing himself. The most he could do was speak with a guarded or off-handed tone as if the things he said didn't really matter to him very much. It was the weakest defense in his arsenal but it seemed to be all he had when talking to Harry.

When he reflected upon his feelings towards Harry, he found a strange concoction of hatred, admiration, lust and confusion. Hatred, for the things he had done and said to him, admiration, for the many varied talents that he seemed to have mastered, lust, for reasons that he couldn't quite fathom yet, and confusion, for all of the above. He imagined his mind as a bubbling cauldron, thoughts boiling to the surface and evaporating before they could be properly realized or understood. Above that cauldron was Harry, glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose and brow lacing with beaded lines of sweat, haphazardly throwing in crushed and pressed ingredients until the potion within started to overflow.

Draco laid awake long after Harry had drifted off into a light sleep. Being next to someone after spending the past few years alone was strange and exhilarating to him no matter who that someone was, but especially Harry Potter. The chilled atmosphere of the cave seemed to make his bones vibrate for warmth and he longed for the comfort of a human touch. To admit this, he felt, would have been worse than death in many ways. His pride was all that he had left in this world and until he regained some worldly possessions he had vowed he would keep it intact. Still, he had touched Harry; he relived the moments of latent satisfaction mixed with unbearable tension. He couldn't begin to fathom how his mind was so preoccupied with this, given his situation. Sitting in a cave with little to no hope of escape was hardly his notion of the ideal romantic getaway. On second thought though, if he was going to die here at least he would not be alone.

He reached up to feel his face. A scar went from his left temple to the center of his left eyebrow leaving a slightly pinkish line across his otherwise unblemished face. He could've had it fixed completely. It hadn't been drawn by dark magic unlike the scars on his stomach, but he chose to refuse medical attention and walked away from the scene of the crime knowing that he at the very least had his pride intact and indeed that that was all he walked away with. These things had long since passed and the gash on his face had healed to form a scar, a memory of his passed that he carried with him but that no longer caused him pain.

Slowly he found the dark shapes of his imagination moving to the forefront of his consciousness until they finally overwhelmed him. He and Harry were sitting on a hippogriff and soaring silently through the sky. He was holding tight around Harry's waist to keep from falling countless stories to the ground bellow. Gigantic wings flapped against the backs of his thighs and pushed them through the air with a force that made his eyes water. Suddenly they found themselves losing air and speed, the hippogriff was struggling to stay aloft. All at once, the beast was gone and they were tumbling through the air rapidly. As the ground neared them, he realized they were falling into a wide, circular hole. They landed there almost gracefully on a soft mossy floor. He looked up to see the silhouetted form of a tall statuesque woman. He called out to her but she simply looked down upon them and said nothing. Her face was obscured by shadows but he had the vaguest feeling that he knew her. He called out again and this time she left only to return with a shovel. Hastily, she started to bury them, throwing an unreal amount of clay-colored soil with every heave of the shovel. His legs were immobilized by the first load and he was quickly being enveloped by dirt and mud. The weight of it pressed in on his chest and he struggled to breath. Harry's hand was in his own but its grip was fading. He tried to pull him up but found himself just being forced deeper into the deadly mix. Very suddenly he felt a pressure on his shoulders. He was being shaken violently out of the trap and try as he might to hold on to Harry's weakening hand he was forced to let go.

All at once he found his eyes open to the darkness and someone on top of him shaking him awake.

"Get off of me!" he cried into the darkness and was surprised by how his voice was magnified by the cave. He struggled to free himself but his arms were pinned firmly to his sides by the other person's weight.

"Wake up, Draco it's me, Harry!"

His heart felt as though it was trying to beat its way out of his chest but even still, he tried to relax his muscles and stopped attempting to free himself. After a few seconds of deep calming breaths and counting backwards from ten Harry started to lift himself off of Draco's chest.

"Wait!" he almost pleaded.

"What?" Harry's tone was sharp and carried a tinge of annoyance with it. Draco was instantly embarrassed.

"Nothing, just regaining my bearings I guess. Sorry," he contented himself with avoiding sleep for a little while. It was worth it to avoid another embarrassing episode like this one.

"Are you okay now?" Harry asked in a slightly standoffish voice still kneeling over him. He sounded as though he had just woken up to tend to a particularly fractious child.

"Yeah, it was just a bad dream. Did I wake you?" Draco asked with what he hoped sounded like genuine concern as Harry extricated himself from their tangle.

"Yes, you did actually, but it's okay, I was having a bad dream too," Harry's words trailed off as he shifted around in his spot. All at once, his hand had found Draco's knee, and having found its target tightened around it. Draco's breath caught in his chest as it tightened around his heart. "I'm thirsty. I think it's time we figure out whether or not that water is safe to drink."

"Who's going to be the guinea pig?" Draco quipped trying to erase his last few spoken words from memory. He knew he should have been trying to think of what to say to Harry's possible responses but his mind was preoccupied with the hand on his knee.

"I had kind of figured it would be me, but if you would like to I certaintly won't stop you," Harry offered. Draco's mind raced with the proper answer to this. Appear brave and take the challenge to preserve his pride? Or tell Harry that he had better be the one to try it, as this was clearly beneath him. The decision took less than a second to make.

"Well as I am neither thirsty nor set on killing myself any earlier than necessary, you, my friend, may have the honor," he kept his tone guarded so as to not show vulnerability. This was the legacy his father had left to him.

"I figured you would say something along those lines. Well, come with me then. Besides I'd rather die than be the one who gets stuck alone down here," his words sparked a pang of sadness in Draco. Being alone was probably the worst thing he had ever felt. Though he had lead a fairly solitary existence for the past four years, at least he could still see day light through the heavily marred window of his apartment. He could still read a book and immerse himself in worlds true and passed or fictional and contemporary. There was nothing here. He suddenly wished he had volunteered but knew this would be seen as a sign of weakness and of fear. So his mouth remained still and his tongue silent.

Holding hands once more they made their way back to the water hole. They stopped by the nearest edge and Draco found that his stomach was doing summersaults and his insides were twisted. He wanted so badly to speak, to tell Harry to stop but no words escaped his lips. Harry felt about the edge and found a place where the water was trickling in from an unseen source.

"I think it would be unwise for us to drink from the pond directly, so I'm going to sip from where it's trickling in," he said after inspecting the area for what he must have felt was an adequate length of time. Draco felt a pull at his arm as Harry leaned forward. A sipping sound came from beside him and then another, this time much longer. Silence followed for a few seconds until finally Draco could not take it any longer.

"Well?" Draco asked trying to mask the concern in his voice with impatience.

"Well what?" came back Harry's voice sounding disgruntled.

"Is the water safe?" he replied feeling stupid and sheepish as the words left his lips.

"I don't know, I mean I think so, it tastes just fine," Harry replied sounding slightly flustered. Draco did not mind Harry being angry with him but for him to think that he was somehow mentally inadequate was simply mortifying. This situation could only be resolved by an insult.

"Just _fine_?"He said in a disgusted drawl. "Seeing as you have absolutely no ability to taste with discrimination, you _would_ say that cave water was delicious." Harry sighed with exasperation.

"Well then, if your taste buds are oh _so_ cultured, why don't you step forward and try it." Draco contemplated the challenge for a moment. Harry certainly was not dead so the odds were that the water was, in fact,' just fine' and he would have to drink it eventually. So with eyes closed he leaned forward and pressed his lips to the icy stream and tasted the purest water he had ever known.

-.-.-.-

Time passed slowly in the cave without conversation. The complete darkness coupled with the incessant echoing water had started to play tricks on their minds already. Without external stimulation, their senses had gone to their imaginations for feedback. Harry could've sworn that he had seen a large figure walking towards him and Draco was certain he had heard voices coming from the water hole. These things bore no real significance and they came to realize gradually that it was all in their heads. Because of this, the two men decided it was best to break the silence and talk. The subjects ranged from quidditch to politics depending on their moods. Harry's side was often riddled by emotional sentiment and pedantic lectures while Draco's was attenuated by eloquent sophistry.

"_Why_ is it so wrong though," Draco had asked in reference to Harry's feelings on house elf rights.

"It just is!" Harry exclaimed feeling far less petulant than he sounded. "How would you like to be treated like that? I'm certain you wouldn't take too kindly to being ordered around and treated like shit."

"No, I wouldn't take very kindly to it at all. But there's a very simple glitch in your logic, Potter."

"And what would that be?" Harry asked with mock deference.

"That would be that I'm not a house elf," Draco said smugly.

"So you really believe there's nothing wrong with forcing another sentient being into slavery?" Harry said, disbelief evident in his voice. "I mean that's pretty cold even for a Slytherin."

"If said being finds in to be gratifying to perform said tasks then it is hardly forced or slavery, and yes, I really do whole heartedly believe that to be the case," he said playfully as though this were all a game. "However," he paused dramatically before carrying on, "I _do_ think that it is wrong to simply assume that all house elves feel that way. It's all about choice, you see, there would be no force involved. Many house elves maintain a sense of honor in serving Wizards, and that sense can be decreased or increased by their perception of how magnanimous or respectable their family is. There are a few exceptions to the rule of course, for example my former house elf, and your former-"

"Friend," Harry filled in his blank proudly.

"Yes, that," Draco said shortly and continued. "Dobby was, for all intents and purposes, excellent at performing any and all tasks required of him to serve but he lacked the unquestioning loyalty that is virtually endemic to house elves as a species."

"Dobby was plenty loyal," Harry said tersely.

"You and I had very different experiences with him, then," Draco said shortly.

"He was loyal to those who didn't abuse him."

"But you see, not all, in fact most other house elves just aren't like that," Draco tried to mitigate the effects of these words with a kind tone. Before Harry could object he continued, "I'm trying to be completely objective here by saying that this is neither good nor bad, neither here nor there. Dobby should not have been forced to stay in the house if it truly was not what he wanted. But others simply have no objection to it."

"Just because they don't object to it doesn't make it right," Harry said stubbornly and went on to explain that one can't just go around letting people get hurt simply because they don't speak up for themselves.

"You can't save everyone, Potter, it's just impossible," Draco had said.

They went on like this for was must've been hours. Each took his turn to expound upon what he saw as his worldly wisdom until 'evening' fell upon them. They had exhausted every superficial topic that they could think of rather quickly. Harry for his part had expected to have many more disagreements with his childhood rival. He quickly found however that they seemed to have much more in common than either one had ever thought possible. Their differences did not lie in their conclusions but in the routes, they have taken to get to them.

They had avoided two topics in particular, going out of their way every time they seemed to logically edge their way into discussion. The first was food. Neither one had had any ideas on how to obtain this necessity. While they knew they would have to confront this issue eventually they had made a tacit agreement of sorts to put it off until it was a more pressing matter. They made trips to the pond occasionally, still wandering hand in hand to take their minds off of the twisting flips that their stomachs insisted upon doing. So finally with their other options and topics for conversation dried out, they sat in the room that they had settled in, thighs touching lightly and spoke of the past in reverent tones. Harry decided to be the first to speak, as Draco seemed to prefer silence to self exposure.

"I knew you were living with muggles, but I had no idea how terrible they had been," Draco said in a hushed voice. Harry sat next to him with his elbow propped up on Draco's shoulder, twisting a lock of his own hair around his finger compulsively and playing with the beads of the bracelets he wore with the other hand; the tactile gratification kept his mind off of the memories he had recently exposed. "I just don't understand how you could be so sympathetic to muggles after the way they treated you." Draco seemed to make no effort to suppress his surprise and bemusement.

"Well they're not all like that," Harry offered in defense of the near 6 billion people he didn't know. "I mean you shouldn't denigrate all of those people just because of a few bad examples," he said reasonably.

"Oh, sweetheart, I wouldn't dream of doing such a thing," Draco said in a voice that dripped with sweetness and acid, "not when there is such an abundance of bad examples to choose from. Now your aunt and uncle were simply terrible, materialistic and even sadistic but seeing as I have come from similar upbringing I can't judge them too harshly, you're right," he drawled, "But I'm sure you're aware of their history having grown up with them, aren't you Potter? Every one of those so called western civilizations has waged a witch hunt of their very own, as if they could ever hope to take on someone with magical abilities. They kill themselves over the silliest of matters and enslave each other over the color of their skin, of all things. The few cultures that actually respect our kind and hold them in a spot of reverence have been wiped out or taken over. Their pitiful excuses for innovation do nothing but damage an already aging planet- one that we must share with them, mind you- and they claim to be acting for the greater good. Have you tried to breath in the streets of London recently? It's almost impossible to do without choking on your own tongue! I come out of a floo trip feeling cleaner than I do walking about that wretched city! And all of this, every single destructive event from the Holocaust to Hiroshima, from ethnic cleansing to global warming, could've been avoided if they had simply accepted us from the beginning," when he finished he was breathing heavily. His words carried on almost musically after he had stopped speaking as they bounced off of the cave walls.

Harry found himself momentarily muted by the rapid onslaught of information but quickly regained himself. "You know an awful lot about these people who you claim to hate," he said.

"Know your enemy," Draco spat back so quickly that Harry felt he must have rehearsed the line in a mirror.

"Know yourself first," Harry said with a shiver. "Are you really so ignorant as to believe that discrimination and prejudice are strictly muggle advents? I mean, look at your own movement, for fucks sake! People were being hunted for their blood!"

"The blood is a metaphor for something greater," Draco said plainly. "I could care less whether or not someone is of muggle heritage if they are raised by wizards. It's the culture and none of you muggle lovers get that. We don't want their cars or their oil or their wars and politics brought into our lives. We don't want their bullshit to put it plainly. And then we see people who venerate every little petty invention as ingenuity making up for some kind of adorable handicap! The worst are the bloody Weasley's who are so intrigued by everything but can't even take the time or are just too plain stupid to figure out what they're even called-" but before he could finish Harry was on top of him.

"DON'T YOU DARE!" he shook Draco violently by his neck," EVER, _EVER_ SAY ANYTHING BAD ABOUT THE WEASLEY'S AGAIN! YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THEM, YOU BASTARD!" his voice shook with every syllable and he could feel Draco's pulse beating against his tightening fingers. He could feel Draco's balled up fists pounding uselessly against his shoulders and chest. His choking sounds were becoming more and more faint with every passing second. Very suddenly, he let go and stood up. This was wrong, this was a bad thing to do, he thought as he pressed his forehead against the cool rock of the opposite wall. Draco gagged and wretched against the floor in the corner that he had been left in for several minutes but said nothing.

Apart from the occasional shaking wheeze of a breath from Draco, the two sat in silence for a long time. Harry didn't know what to say and for his part felt as though it was Draco's move to make. He felt terrible but kept reminding himself that Draco had been the one to instigate, and that he was only doing what a Gryffindor did best in staying loyal to his friends. He was suddenly saddened by the thought of them and felt tears burning their way into the corners of his eyes. Surely they had noticed he was gone, were they looking for him? Were they in a state to look for him? He had confronted everything with Ron and Hermione and now he was alone. Oh and Ginny, how would she be feeling right now? The last time he had seen her they had fought over something so insignificant, he couldn't even remember what it had been. His chest burned with regret and longing. He tried to picture her face in his mind but with every minute he spent in the cave, another freckle seemed to disappear, or her hair would lie unnaturally around her shoulders; he knew it was only chin length these days.

He pressed his palms into his closed eyes as if to check on whether or not they still existed and went back to his paradise. The air there was not cool and dank but warm and humid. He could hear the euphonious dribble of streams feeding into the pond. Dragonflies zipped about and sometimes even dared to grace the water around his head, sending lapping ripples of relief towards his sun beaten cheeks. A thousand varieties of flora- fruited, flowered and verdant- bent their heads inwards over the water as if bowing down to him, Harry Potter, the kind and benevolent King of La-La Land. With that, he opened his eyes and was met by a darkness that seemed, if at all possible, even more empty than before. The warmth left his face without any trace of ever having been there at all. Draco's persistent wheezing brought a pang of remorse to his ribs. He may not have been willing to apologize but he knew he would be the first to step forward and say something because as it stood right now, Ron and Hermione were not here and Draco was. It was up to him so make an amicable gesture after the episode.

"Um, if you want, I'll go with you to the water so you can get a drink?" he posed the phrase as a question as his words seemed oddly chosen given that he had just nearly strangled the other boy. Draco didn't respond for several seconds.

"Is that an apology?" Draco final croaked before going into another coughing spell.

"No," he started defensively, "I just thought you might need a drink, after… after that," he tried to finish as plainly as he could but the words held an unshakable admittance of guilt.

"Oh. In that case, I accept your apology," coughed Draco, apparently picking up on this as well, "and offer one of my own."

"Oh," Harry said in utter surprise. "Accepted." Harry felt his way over to his prison mate and pulled him up gently.

"You know, this is the second time you've ended up on top of me today," Draco said casually.

Harry thought for a moment. "Yes it is."

"There are less violent ways of letting me know that you like me, just so you know," he said casually and Harry laughed. With some of the tension alleviated, they started to move.

Draco staggered a bit and resumed choking as they exited the cavity, so Harry rapped his arm around his waist and supported as much of his weight as he could bear to. Hunger was beginning to weaken him and he had started to feel oddly dissociated from the movement his legs were making by the time they had reached the water's edge. Taking turns, they drank until their thirst had been satisfied and then more to try to fool their stomachs into thinking they were full. Harry wet his face with the cool water and sat for a moment until Draco spoke.

"Can we go back now?" his voice was still hoarse but showed a vast improvement from before. "I'm tired."

"Yeah, we can," said Harry with some ambivalence. The sound of the water relaxed him, but the rocks here were sharp and uneven making it impossible to be truly comfortable. He rose and gripped Draco around the waist again though this time Draco was not leaning on him as heavily. He was thankful as his own weight was proving harder and harder to carry. Even still, Draco was not entirely a burden and he found it very comforting to be close to another person. Draco's thin frame slouched lightly against him and his hand fell on Harry's shoulder. Tentatively he pulled him closer under the false pretense of shifting his weight. Draco did not push away but rather adjusted himself to fit more closely and comfortably onto Harry.

They settled into the hollow carefully making sure not to bump or bruise their heads on the low ceiling. Harry's spinning head was aggravated by the darkness which offered nothing for him to focus on. Chills were increasingly plaguing him as well, so when Draco laid down by his side he was hard pressed not to ask him to move closer. Instead, he decided to roll towards him slowly, hoping he wouldn't notice or become irritated. To his surprise Draco further nestled himself into the crook of Harry's arm. His hair was longer than he remembered it being but just as delicate as it had looked. For reasons that he couldn't understand he felt compelled to stroke it. Maybe it was the hunger or perhaps the sheer oppression of the darkness that surrounded them from all sides but it seemed like a reasonable thing to do at the time.

And so with shaking unseen fingers he carefully reached down and began to feel. At first very tentatively and then, having gotten no reaction, good or bad, a little more firmly and with more confidence. He remembered stroking Ginny's hair in their tiny bed. He had relished in feeling the curves of her body and bare skin against his own, pressing through the sheets in the middle of the night trying to get a little bit closer each time. He shook the thought from his head but realized with some alarm that what he was feeling right now was strikingly similar. Before he could get much further with the thought however, Draco shifted abruptly.

"Potter," he said in a sleepy voice, "what on earth are you doing?"

"Oh, um, uh- n-nothing," he stuttered pulling his hand out of the locks and instantly feeling silly. "I-I uh, I'm sorry, I'm just… Hungry?" he finished lamely. As if to bolster his claim, his stomach immediately grumbled loudly at them both.

"So… were you going to eat me? Or something?" Draco asked slightly mockingly but with a hint of honest concern in his voice.

"No!" he quickly responded. "I'm just not thinking straight, I think…"

"You think?"

"Can I just say sorry and be done with this topic?" Harry said hearing how ridiculous he sounded. Draco sighed heavily.

"No apologies are needed. You put it so eloquently yesterday 'I think it helps somehow.' You don't need to stop. It feels… nice," the last word lacked the fluid grace that qualified his other phrases but it seemed somehow more natural. Less calculated, Harry thought, and more honest. So his hand made its way awkwardly back to Draco's hair and found a particularly soft spot that started between his left ear and temple. As his fingers ran their repeated course, it became more and more familiar. He worked his way up towards Draco's face. His skin was cooler than it should have been and felt slightly moist but otherwise it was smooth. He graced his finger tips lightly from the top of his temple towards the middle of his eyebrow and found that they were running along a track of sorts; a raised and even ridge of scar tissue made a thin line on the boys face.

"What is this scar from?" he asked in a hushed voice. But Draco did not respond. His breaths were deep and slow, and their vacillating rhythm combined with the eerie sound that the water made from this far down the cave had started to lull Harry to sleep.

Everything was black except the glowing platform beneath him. It shined so brightly that for a moment he thought he was laying on top of the sun itself. He blinked the sting away from his eyes and forced them to adjust. Copper or gold, he couldn't tell, but the metal was pleasantly cool against his skin. He realized with a shock that he was naked and stood up quickly, holding his genitals as if this could assuage his feelings of exposure. His situation seemed to exist within a bubble, nothing but darkness surrounded him and no visible support seemed to exist beneath his platform. Had one existed it would've been rather pointless, he felt, as there wasn't a visible ground either. Something caught his eye very suddenly, where there had been nothing before. A second glowing disc of gold slowly lifted up and then fell down as if on a teetering scale with his platform on the other side. The outlines of two tall men, one thin and elegant, the other thick and brooding stared at him or perhaps through him from the other side, motionless as if frozen.

_Who are you?_ He shouted at them but was shocked by how his words seemed get sucked into a vacuum and fall deadened upon leaving his mouth. They sounded muted as if he was shouting with his hands covering his ears. As short of a distance as his words had seemed to travel, this seemed to awaken the two figures abruptly. They pulled their wands out, one from a holster on his belt and the other from within a walking stick and took aim at him. He stood completely vulnerable upon the platform, illuminated from all sides and naked. With no other choice in sight, he closed his eyes and waited for the deadly spells to hit him. A long time seemed to pass but he had felt nothing aside from his pounding heart trying to make the best of its final beats. Something tenderly sweet smelling, maybe grass, tickled his nose and he opened his eyes.

_Am I still asleep?_ He asked a seventeen year old Draco, his voice echoing against the tiled walls and porcelain sinks of the second floor girls bathroom. He didn't respond at first and seemed to be lost in thought before realizing that Harry stood before him. Even then, he only smiled mildly and welcomingly at Harry. Only now did Harry realize that Draco was also naked and was bleeding profusely from several jagged edged gashes in his stomach. He ran towards the other boy whose face remained as florid as ever in spite of the amount of blood he was losing. He frantically but uselessly tried to stop the effluent current that was pushing past his fingers, but his efforts only seemed to exacerbate the problem. Every time his fingertips pushed against one wound, another one seemed to appear until Draco's entire abdomen was nothing but a bloody pulsing pulp. Hot tears blurred his vision. Sweat poured off of his brow and down the curves of his cheek bones. Draco laid there calmly as if this was a minor inconvenience that plagued him occasionally but whenever he tried to speak, crimson poured out of his mouth forming a poor substitute for his words.

Without knowing why or what he intended to do, Harry found himself lying behind Draco. He held the limp nearly lifeless body to his chest and realized he was sinking into the ground. Plant life burgeoned around him and vines bound the two of them together rapidly like devils snare._ I'll be all right,_ Draco's complacent voice said surrounding him, _just don't leave me here in the flames. I don't want to burn._

_You know I wouldn't…_ darkness overwhelmed him until the only sense that remained was the one that let him know he was still holding Draco. He sobbed deeply into the other man's shoulder and clung to him as tightly as he could. Nothing remained but the two of them, the darkness and the mossy floor beneath them.

"Harry," came a whisper in his ear, "Harry, it was only a dream," but he clung tighter still, the image of the blood bathed boy still stinging his memories.

-.-.-.-

They sat for an immeasurable amount of time without speaking before Harry moved. They had their backs against the cave wall and sat side by side with their shoulders and thighs touching. Occasionally Draco would lean against Harry and sigh deeply as if this made their arrangement more comfortable but he always picked his head back up off of Harry's shoulder after a moment not wanting to seem too dependent.

"I just wish I could see," Draco finally said in a strained voice. It was all either one of them seemed to be able to think of. That is to say, it was the most innocuous thing to think of. It had been three days since they had found themselves in the cave and while the concept of food seemed like a distant memory, hunger had become as familiar as the ancient halls of Hogwarts. Draco imagined himself taking the well trodden path to the room of requirement, placing one foot in front of the other, each time praying silently that his tireless efforts might come to fruition. Thinking back on it, he wasn't sure which was worse: a life where he was constantly fearful and on edge, or the insipid existence that he had come to lead afterwards. After being disowned, his mother had- through some covert actions, he was sure- sent him enough money to rent and eat, along with a few of his own things. For two years, he lived off of what little he had been given or could attain and lived a life full of banal activities. Walk to the park to read, sit at the kitchen table to read, eat when he remembered to do so, read for a bit and then sleep. This had been his routine.

The idea of becoming an auror had been the first thing in two years that had provided him a past time of any significance. It wasn't really a goal at first, as the possibility of going from Deatheater to crime fighter seemed unlikely, but the more he heard about Professor Snape the more he longed to emulate him. When Harry had finally submitted to being interviewed (for a historical reporter intent on documenting the momentous battle) Draco had read the section that vindicated Professor Snape almost obsessively, memorizing every word used to describe the audacious and heroic life of his mentor. He scrutinized every detail of the man's biography from his clandestine love of Lily Evans to his ultimate and lack-luster fall at the hands of the Dark Lord. On the surface, his life seemed like a wasted one with the untimely death of his true love being sealed by his own hands and his final year of life as an outcast from those who he sought to protect. And yet, Draco felt there was beauty to his tragedy. His life reminded Draco of a painting that had hung in Father's library of an old war scene- stoic men clad in heavy silver sitting atop pure white stallions, destined to exist in perpetual conflict- a terrible cross-section encapsulated though not frozen in a breath taking mural.

Draco liked to think of himself as having similar qualities; after all, he had always been Professor Snape's favorite. He very briefly had wondered if that had all been an act to appease his father but had ultimately decided that this could not be the case. He didn't doubt that a large portion of the relationship they had had was fabricated, but in Slytherin, this was considered to be a quality that was endemic to the community. Many of the people he had been closest with were what others might call polite acquaintances. While he was certain that Harry's friends were probably going into an absolute panic over his absence, Draco would've been shocked if Pansy had even flinched upon reading about his disappearance in the paper. There was no suffocating link to others in that sense, but at the same time he had longed for what seemed like a lifetime to be close to someone, to have a true companion. Still though, Harry seemed to care for his well being, at least when he wasn't trying to strangle him. He smiled to himself but was brought back to his present situation by a rumbling sound from his abdomen.

He turned his head in the direction of his prison mate, eyes closed because the darkness seemed slightly more natural when confronted this way. And yet, his eyelids had the faintest hue of blue to them as he turned towards Harry. No, impossible. Slowly, and in disbelief he opened his eyes. There sitting beside him was a soot faced, bedraggled locked, Harry Potter staring in awe at the bluish light that radiated from his fingertips.

* * *

Thanks are due to thebrunnetteone for the BETA!

Please let me know what you think, good AND bad!

PteraWaters: Thank you! I've been brain storming back and forth between this and another story for a few months and decided to go with this one for now as the idea is way more developed. Draco is no longer a Malfoy, but he still carries the name of a pure blood family. He really needs to ask himself How much importance can be stocked in that when he has no assets or political pull as a result.

NaginiPotter: Thank you for the encouragement. This is my first posted Fanfic so its much appreciated.

Trina, Charlielovesme: I should be updating more frequently in the future. I hope you continue to enjoy!


	3. Sushi and Diamonds

This fanfic picks up with Harry four years after the defeat of Voldemort. Harry is 21 and lives with Ron, Hermione and Ginny in a small apartment in London. He and Ron both work for the ministry, Hermione is perusing S.P.E.W. and Ginny is a member of the holly head harpies (keeping in line with what JKR has told us about their post Hogwarts experience). Here however we veer off the course that JKR has set and explore a scenario that doesn't include the kids, etc. Some of the things I write may seem a little bit out of character but I tried to remain to true what I felt was the deepest sense of the characters while also allowing room for them to mature. Enjoy!

I acknowledge that none of these wonderful characters belong to me but are the property and creation of the always brilliant J.K. Rowlling. I thank her for building a world that is truly complex and beautiful for all of us to enjoy.

* * *

The Cave, Ch. 3

_Hunger, dark. Food, light. Hunger, dark. Food, light._ His list of problems and their respective solutions were on a loop, like a broken record around the spindle of his mind. If only he had a wand, his problems would dissolve. If he had a wand, he could see. If he could see, he could find food. The logic was circular and yet oddly direct. It always seemed to start with magic and end with food. He balled up his fists and pushed his back into the cave wall where he sat next to Draco. This was only their third day in the cave but the effects of the isolation were readily becoming apparent to Harry. He was familiar with them after his months of Horcrux chasing. What he wouldn't give for that lifestyle right now. Sure, he had been on the run, afraid for his own life and the lives of those who depended on him, but he had also been sure that he had something worth fighting for; a purpose driving him forward. And at least he had had his two best friends with him. Draco served as a poor substitute in his opinion.

Draco's head made a weight on his shoulder. He briefly considered telling him off. He had fantasized about taking out all of his frustration on the boy sitting next to him, pushing him violently into the unseen depths of the cave and throwing his fists until they came into contact with something warm and fleshy. He wanted so badly to believe that the situation that he was in had been concocted by Draco and could be diffused by violence. However, after the past two days of near ceaseless conversation he had learned a few things about the young man. None of those things suggested that he would ever leave himself wandless, if he could help it.

And so with balled up fists he pushed in on his temples, willing them to stop throbbing. When he did this his wrists became hot with tension and the pain seemed to, at least for very brief moments, subside ever so slightly. Maybe his touch still had some magic, he thought, maybe if he just thought hard enough, imagined the spells moving from ephemeral to concrete, they would spring to life, each one a slight miracle just for existing. It would not matter what they did or if in fact they did nothing at all, but the red and green sparks would hold the power of hope for him. Draco's head lifted, leaving a cold spot where he had once been.

The two hadn't spoken for hours, not since they had woken up to Harry's cries. He couldn't really say that he was embarrassed, though if Draco had reacted any other way to him he probably would've been. In truth, Draco hadn't reacted much to him at all. He had quietly informed Harry of the non-substantive nature of his visions and hadn't said much more. His reaction had not really been verbal but still Harry felt as though his simple returned embrace was enough to let him know that it was alright, that there was no need to be ashamed. He had woken up holding Draco in the same way that he had in his sleep: from behind with one arm under his head and the other arm, elbow bent, coming up across his chest. Draco had held his arms firmly as if giving affirmation to the claim that he was truly still alive. He held on tightly without any complaint as Harry heaved wet sobs into his shoulder.

Certain things were a blur from the experience – the least of which not being the vision itself, which had been so vivid at the time but had now faded into sudden snapshots – while other details stood out like neon signs set against the back drop of dark-windowed shops. He couldn't remember how long they had been embraced but felt as though he could remember the tone of every heartbeat that synced between the two of them. He couldn't recall why he had decided to stand and break their contact, but he could've sworn that Draco had held onto his hand for just a split second longer than was necessary. All of these things – the feeling of his skin, slick with sweat, the softness of his hair, while tangled and knotted – created a comforting but incomplete mosaic of experiences for him to reflect on. The taste of sweat and saltwater, the sound of his own sobs and Draco's hushing sounds, the smell of the dank stagnant air, the feeling of Draco's warm body shivering against his own... but no sight. He pushed in on his temples again and tried to force the pain away. Once more he found the slightest respite in his fists.

_Maybe_, he thought, _maybe if I just feel strong enough, magic will happen_. As a child this had been possible though unfocused and tended to have unintentional consequences. He didn't want to set the ground on fire by accident. No, adding third degree burns to his situation was hardly desirable. _Perhaps just having the training that I have will enable me to focus_, he rationalized. _Lumos,_ he thought to himself without conviction, and opened his eyes. Nothing. Non-verbal spells hadn't come very easily to him so perhaps it was just a matter of trying harder. _Lumos,_ he thought again, feeling silly even in the confidence of his own thoughts. _Okay, one last time,_ he thought and tightened his muscles. He cleared his mind and thought of nothing but light, pouring into the cave from anonymous sources, hitting the dust particles that hung almost magically in the air, refracting miniscule spectrums towards his starving eyes. This light could illuminate everything but it was everything. _Lumos!_

It started with a tingling in his finger tips like pins and needles. It worked its way down to his wrists and up to his shoulders until his arms seemed to vibrate with the tension. At first he thought his mind was playing tricks on him, as the faint blue was barely discernable from the darkness. He pushed harder, willing the magic to flow through him. Slowly, but undeniably, tiny pearls of light began to gather at his finger tips. They were the grey-blue of early dawn on a stormy day, the light already once diffused by storm clouds, fighting to peek through slightly parted curtains. The surface tension broke and the light began to pool in his cupped hands. He could feel Draco's eyes resting on him and turned to look at the other boy. His face, which was dirty on the side he had slept on, was frozen in shock, eyes wide and tearful, mouth slightly agape.

"H-h-how?" he finally mumbled in shock and amazement.

"I don't know," said Harry with a face on that he was certain mirrored Draco's.

Draco dipped a quivering finger carefully into the pool of light that was continuing to fill Harry's open palms. As he withdrew, Harry could see that the light could stick like paint to whatever it touched. Draco traced his finger along the wall of the chamber in the form of a spiral and began to grin. The grin turned into a laugh and the laugh turned into a holler of triumph.

"Harry, how! You have magic!" Draco shouted and clasped Harry's shoulders. Snapped out of his shock by the contact, Harry stood quickly and almost hit his head on the low ceiling.

"I don't know!" he repeated almost stubbornly. "I just, I don't even know what I did but it happened!" he stuttered out quickly. The liquid light was beginning to overflow from the uneven edges of his finger tips. He quickly stepped out of the cavity and began walking towards the water without fully knowing why. All he knew was that food would likely come from the water. He could hear Draco running to catch up with him and possibly trying to say something to him as well, but his head was buzzing so loud that he couldn't make any sense of what the other boy was trying to tell him. As he walked, he released little droplets to the ground as markers.

"Harry! Look at this!" Draco called in a voice that seemed uncharacteristically chipper for him.

"I can't!" Harry called back without turning his head. "I need to get to the water!" his voice shook with manic conviction.

"No, stop! Look around for a second!" Draco almost pleaded.

"What?" he snapped back, stopping to turn and look at Draco for the first time with disdain. "Oh." He had been so taken with the light itself that he had almost entirely forgotten that it held the power to illuminated the cave. The pool in his palm had gotten so bright that it shined in a pure white gleam, while the spatters he had left were different gradations of blue getting lighter and lighter as they neared his feet. While the cave walls had seemed to hold nothing but sharp edges and tripping hazards, upon closer observation they were very apparently sculpted into what looked almost like a living room. The shapes of chairs and a long table were carved superficially into the wall. Each piece of outlined furniture had little knobs placed haphazardly into its edges. The ceiling that Harry had felt in his first waking moments in the cave was not a mess of jagged stalactites and ridges but an organized set of shelves set back into a hollow running down the length of the cave. Strange artifacts rested upon them, stone plates and bowls, flatware, and cast iron and pewter cauldrons in different sizes. Various cooking implements lined the walls above the shelves and hung from metal hooks almost threateningly. Each metal instrument glinted in the light like a dentist's tools laid out on sterile counter tops for nervous patients to inspect.

"This must've been intentional. Whoever put us here is not trying to kill us," Draco whispered into a salt shaker shaped like a cat. Harry poured the liquid light into a marble soup bowl and found his hands were free of any residual signs of what he had just accomplished. He picked up the bowl and carried it over to Draco.

"This is incredible," Harry said, looking into the glowing soup bowl, his heart still racing. Each one of the chair shapes had little stone knobs sticking out of it. Harry set the bowl down carefully and grabbed two such knobs and pulled as hard as he could. Landing flat on his hind-side, he found quickly that the chairs could be pulled out of the wall with very little strength indeed.

"Don't know my own strength, I guess," he said, blushing timidly.

"Oh please, Potter. It's clear that your magic isn't the only magic present here, so don't flatter yourself," came Draco's curt reply. Harry's attention was immediately ripped away from the stone chair to the figure in front of him. He hadn't truly looked at Draco before. The boy looked strangely out of place in a baseball tee shirt with green sleeves that went down to his wrists and dark blue pajama pants with white pin stripes. He was almost as tall as Harry – though a little bit thinner – but something about the way he held himself made him seem slightly taller than he was. His hair was as blond as ever but darkened by the dirt that streaked it. His face, which at the moment bore the unmistakable lines of annoyance, was pale and rigidly cut with a solid brow and jaw line, high-set cheek bones and a pointed nose. Everything about his demeanor reeked of aristocracy despite his attire. It seemed as though, in spite of having lost everything from his inheritance to his name, he maintained the Malfoy sense of pride and entitlement. Harry found himself immediately put off by this. While Draco may not have the Malfoy name at his aid, he certainly had not been transfigured into a common citizen. Harry shifted uncomfortably under the accusatory gaze of his fellow captive, feeling suddenly self-conscious of his own appearance. Straightening himself as much as he could, he decided to speak.

"What's your problem all of the sudden?" he said with impatience to match Draco's expression. "This is a good thing, and had it not been for whatever just happened, we-"

"We what?" Draco cut him off. "We wouldn't be able to see all of the dishes and silverware that we having nothing to eat with? We're still in the same shit situation as before, only now I know that you've been holding out on me." He turned around abruptly as if to end the conversation, but Harry was hardly going to let this tantrum go unanswered.

"Holding out on you? You make it sound as though I could have done this all along!" he said furiously, grabbing Draco's arm and turning him around.

"Brilliant deduction, Potter! And I'm glad to see that your people skills have matured," Draco spat back, shaking his arm free of Harry's grip. "So where is it?"

"Where is what?' Harry said in honest confusion.

"Your wand you idiot! And while you're at it, I'd like an explanation for why you've brought me here!" Draco's eyes blazed with something that Harry had seen before. Paranoia. He had seen it far too many times in the eyes of his co-workers and even in his best friends. Eyes rapidly moving left to right, right to left, as if scanning one's peers, family, room, dishes, whatever, for any aberrant artifacts. Even with the Dark Lord defeated there were those who still feared being hunted, whether by former Death Eaters or even himself.

"Well?" Draco demanded though he had lost some of his conviction. All Harry could think to do was shrug. He raised his shoulders slowly so as not to appear threatening and lifted his hands, palm up to show how truly empty they were. The only sounds that could be heard through the cave were the distant trickling of water, the rapid breathing of the two boys and the soft clink of his bracelets as they slid down his forearm. And then all at once, Harry understood.

* * *

The plain expression on Harry's face disabled him. His conviction had lapsed and once again his walls were being breached. To say that he was embarrassed by his own barefaced and baseless claims would've been an understatement. He was mortified by his loss of control. _What would Father think,_ a voice inside of his head mused. _What kind of Malfoy loses an argument to a mute opponent? Then again, I suppose I'm not really a Malfoy, _he concluded morosely. Harry had not presented him with any sort of undeniable proof that his claims had been outlandish, nor had he rebutted with the wit of a Shakespearian poet; indeed, the sight of him standing there in his black button-down with red pinstripes, jeans and dirty bare feet with his palms turned upwards in dismay, was almost comical. At least, it would have been comical had the simple gesture not signified the end of their argument and Draco's defeat. Of course Harry didn't have a wand, and of course he hadn't taken Draco as his captive. This was Gryffindor he was dealing with.

"We need to go to the waterhole," Harry said suddenly, completely derailing Draco's train of self-deprecation. Without another word he grabbed a teacup off of the shelf nearest Draco's head, forcing him to recoil. "You don't need to be so paranoid," Harry said in a placating tone. "I'm used to people being paranoid around me." This time his voice held the slightest hint of bitterness, though it did not seem to be directed towards Draco. He poured half of the light from his bowl into the teacup and shoved it unceremoniously into Draco's hand. "Come on, I'm hungry."And with that Harry turned on his heel and set off in a quick trot towards the pond.

"What?" Draco called out in dismay and frustration as he looked down at his tea cup. The least Harry could have done was act offended or have the decency to regard Draco as an opponent worthy of berating. But no, all he had done was tried to cut Draco's losses for him! It was such a patronizing gesture and in any normal situation Draco would've insisted on a proper fight. But as fate would have it, this was hardly normal, so with a short sigh he followed Harry to the water.

When he arrived, he found Harry slightly out of breath with his hands resting on his knees. His black hair was stuck to his forehead by the sweat that had beaded around his temples. All at once several things hit Draco. The first though least profound was his sense of emptiness, both in a physical and an emotional sense. His adrenaline had run dry and he suddenly remembered how fatigued he had been due to a lack of food and proper sleep. His knees felt as though they might buckle underneath him and his head began to spin.

"You okay?" Harry asked him off-handedly.

"Yeah, fine, just need to sit," he replied feeling quite the opposite of fine. He felt less as though he was sitting and more like the ground had come up rapidly to meet him. The second pit of emptiness hit him almost as abruptly as the first. A sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach formed like a lead weight had been dropped down his throat. He felt alone and panicked, like a child who had unwisely strayed too far from his mother's side in a crowded market place. The walls seemed to be closing in on him. The shadows mocked him as they moved gracefully across the cave walls. The cave walls. The last and most profound realization was held in the very walls that imprisoned him. They were beautiful. Every surface seemed to glitter and wink at him. The entirety of the cavern was lined with stones that glittered like stars.

"Are they diamonds?" Harry asked, having followed Draco's upward gaze.

"I don't know. No. They can't be." Draco said, in a higher voice than he had meant to.

"Then what is it?" Harry asked. His mouth hung open slightly and he vaguely reminded Draco of a child he had once spied at the Quidditch World Cup looking upwards in awe and amazement as the players sped past at unfathomable speeds. Draco walked carefully towards the wall, teacup clutched tightly in one fist as if it contained the very force that perpetuated him through life. He was familiar with diamonds. He had, on more than one occasion, snuck into his mother's quarters and opened the vault that contained her most prized jewelry. _55-19-80-77-7 _and the lock clicked satisfyingly under his youthful fingertips each time, pregnant with the promise of the treasures that lay within. Rubies the size of his fists, diamonds that cast spectrums against the amethysts in an unrelenting, unceasing reproduction of beauty. He had decided then that his future would be decorated as such. The manor had a dankness to it, an inescapable sense of darkness that stuck to all who entered. Being the only child, he would surely be the one to inherit the manor and the riches of the vault. With jeweled hands he would fantasize about directing the house elves to spread the contents of his mothers room to the rest of the mansion.

"Line the garden walkway with the Glowing Goblin Gems, Biddy!" he would direct inside of his head. He could see the place brightening before him with precious stones opaque and translucent, all adding their unique cut and color to the very much uniform stencil of the manor. His father believed in having fine things, without a doubt. But to display such riches was a foolish whim.

"You take them out when it is useful to you," he had said after finding Draco adorned in rings, bracelets and – much to his embarrassment – his mother's wedding tiara. He was fourteen at the time and on a holiday break from Hogwarts. His father had not been cruel. He had not employed any unreasonable methods to teach Draco that what he was doing was against the rules. "For now my son, content yourself with green and silver. All of this and more shall be yours in due time. Until then, I would like for you to remember one thing," he paused for the briefest moment to make sure that Draco's attention had not strayed. "These things are beautiful of course, but they do not contain any power of their own. Beautiful things come with power, not the other way around." With those words he turned and began to leave, but before he reached the door he looked back and said, "Draco, I do expect you to never wear that tiara again. But for now, your secret is safe with me." The burning sensation that followed started in the hollows of his stomach and spread rapidly to his cheeks.

The secret in question had not been the simple adornment that Draco had been caught in; it was what it stood for. Of course he would still be expected to marry a woman, and one of his parents' choosing at that. He knew of old wizards who had had affairs with their younger male servants; people talked in the inner circles of higher wizarding society. These men often appeared alone, their wives were always 'unavailable at the moment' or 'on holiday for the month' and Draco supposed that these excuses held at least some truth. There was no doubt that they all had the money to go off to Spain or India for months at a time, but it hardly seemed like a proper marriage, producing an heir within the first year and then forgetting one another's faces. His parents' certainly were cold people, but without a doubt in his mind he knew that they loved each other and spent as much time together as they could afford to. He knew in that moment he would never be able to have a relationship like theirs in proper society.

When Draco had returned to the safe during the summer holidays that followed his fourth year he found, much to his chagrin, that the combination to the lock had been changed and was magically protected from Alohamora. Still, after all of these years, he hadn't forgotten the otherworldly glimmer of the stones as they had left an indelible impression on his young mind. He was very familiar with diamonds.

Slowly he reached into the pocket of his pajama pants and found something sharp; the rock that he had picked up to defend himself when he had first encountered Harry was warm from the heat of his thigh. He pulled out the stone and inspected it briefly before walking towards the wall of the cavern. Carefully he pressed hard against one of the larger crystals and drew the sharp edge across its surface against the grain. There gleaming back at him was the smallest, slightest scratch across the surface of the gem.

"It's probably some sort of quartz," he diagnosed finally. "Really, it's a fairly common-looking stone. Probably wouldn't get more than a few Knuts in Diagon."

"It's beautiful," Harry said as though not hearing a thing that Draco had said.

"Potter, why did we come here?" Draco asked. Harry snapped his head back towards Draco and, while slightly startled by the change in tone, he recomposed himself quickly and lifted up his left hand as if it held some significance.

"I don't know why I was able to do magic just now. I want to try something else this time." Harry had a slight grin on his face.

"What are you going to do?" Draco asked, half-afraid of the answer.

"I want to find some food. Our best bet is in the water." His tone gave away very few indicators as to how hopeful he felt about his hunch, but his face seemed alight with anticipation.

"Well, then go on! I'm half starved already, so if you're waiting for a reason-" but before Draco could finish Harry had already spoken the magic words.

"_Accio_, Fish!" he incanted enthusiastically. It was a strange sight to say the least, Harry with his arm out expectantly, awaiting the arrival of dinner as if beckoning an invisible chef. At first nothing happened. A frown started to pull at the corners of Harry's gaping mouth and the weight of their ordeal seemed to be settling back onto his shoulders. Then, quite suddenly, the water rippled. Harry beamed at Draco briefly and then with more confidence and closed eyes, held out both hands, one still holding the soup bowl and said once more, "_Accio,_ Fish!", this time with much more immediate results. A small greyish fish flopped out of the water, just missing Harry's outstretched hands and hit him squarely in the nose.

"Bletch!" he said whipping his free hand across his face frantically. "Ha! Look!" he bent down and grabbed at the still flailing fish. "Food!" he grinned broadly.

"But how are you doing this without a wand?" Draco almost shouted in frustration. "There's no way that someone of our age, of our experience, or lack thereof, could do wandless magic, not with _that_ kind of focus any way," he gestured towards the captive fish as though it was the offending party.

"Lack thereof? Are you mad? I battled Voldemort four separate times before what should've been my seventh year! What the fuck have you ever done with yourself? I've been dueling adults with far more training than I have since I was 12, and winning! But I'm sure you're well aware of that since one of them was your dear old dad and another was your twisted freak of an aunt! And aside from that I _have_ done wandless magic, on a few occasions, and as a child, no less!" Harry had dropped the bowl on the ground at some point during his rant but Draco couldn't seem to remember it happening. All he could remember seeing was the bonfire that blazed behind Harry's glasses, the hard set line of his jaw, and his fists clenched so tightly that his white knuckles seemed to glow in the spattered mess of light at his feet.

"First of all, _Potter_," he spat the name as if it had left a bitter taste in his mouth, "most wizarding children do some sort of wandless magic and it is almost _always _volatile and unintentional," he spoke so quietly that Harry had to lean in closer to hear him over the trickling water. "The reason we must use wands is to direct the flow of our energy, our magic – ''

"Get to the point, Black," Harry cut in. It was the first time that Harry had called him by his new surname and it seemed oddly unnatural coming from him, as if the word didn't fit quite right on his tongue. Draco cringed at the sound but continued.

"The _point, _is that without a proper conduit for your magic to travel through, doing magic can be potentially deadly. It doesn't simply come from your hands or fingers as some might think. Certainly it is concentrated at the tips of your fingers, like nerve endings but you have nerve endings everywhere – "

"So what? If I cut my finger I don't feel it in my toe!" He simply wasn't getting it.

"Listen, Potter, you have a hard enough time getting simple concepts through that thick skull of yours when you're not constantly interrupting, so just let me fucking finish!" Draco shouted suddenly. Harry hardly acquiesced to the demand but was effectively silenced by the change in Draco's tone. "The nerve endings were a metaphor, clearly past your level of comprehension."

"I may be a captive audience right now, but I hardly have patience for your esoteric pathos. I do hope Your Highness might forgive me for my shameful lack of finesse," Harry's voice was almost as corrosive as the piercing gaze he continued to regard Draco with. He felt his insides squirm uncomfortably but knew he must stand his ground firmly in both a figurative and literal sense. He felt his feet itching to shuffle and his mind flashed back to an instance when his father had cast a similar gaze upon him in the dank cave-like bowels of Azkaban. Still he stood his ground.

"A wizard without a wand, could start a fire intentionally and fairly easily," he fought against the urge to grind his teeth as he spoke. He words were carefully measured and slow as if trying to explain a difficult concept to a child. Harry did not seem much more fond of this tone and furrowed his brow, but he didn't interrupt. "However, without a magical conduit of some sort, whether it's a wand, or a staff, or anything containing magical properties really – " he paused as he noticed Harry break his glare for the slightest moment and grab his right wrist "- said wizard would be more likely to set himself on fire than the fire pit in front of him. Magic is something that even the most scholarly and ancient wizarding families don't truly understand. There must be a way of channeling it and while, historically various cultures have developed various colorful ways to do so, the most effective seems to either be through the use of a wand, sometimes coupled with incantations or potions," he paused for a moment.

Whatever was allowing Harry to do what he had been doing, he was clearly aware of what it was. He had dropped his guard for the slightest fraction of a second when he had grabbed his wrist but that was all that Draco needed. Still he fought the urgent impulse to sneak a glance and the bony appendage. To give in to such a reflex would give what little he had managed to ascertain away. Draco had to admit to himself that as simplistic as Harry often made himself seem he was very quick and observant when he was on his guard. His best bet was to, at least for the moment, cater to Harry's sense of dominance, let him believe that even if he couldn't trust Draco, he was still in charge. The temporary façade would hopefully be enough for Draco to ultimately gain the upper hand. He simply needed to be patient.

"The last thing I must ask of you," he felt as though he might gag on the passiveness of the phrase. It would be worth it in the end, he assured himself and continued, "is that you not bring up my father again, whether with a negative or positive connotation, I don't care. Just don't mention him." In truth he wanted to strangle Harry for what he had said about battling his father. The whole incident stood as the beginning of the end of his creature comforts in life. Not to mention the veritable end of his family. Father's failure had forced Draco into the miserable death-destined spot of Dumbledore's assassin. His proud mother, head held high with righteousness in the previous years of his life, had done unspeakable 'favours' to gain his father's release. He felt his anger begin to rise but just as he felt he could no longer keep from screaming all manner of obscenities at the other boy, Harry's demeanor changed. His shoulders went from rigid and ready for attack to slack with exhaustion. His jaw, which had been clenched so tightly that the veins in his neck were a set of royal purple cords against the paleness of his skin, was now slackened though not entirely relaxed.

"Listen," he said somewhat amicably as he reached once again for his wrist to twirl the wooden beads of his bracelets, a nervous habit that had not been lost to Draco, "I do _not_ know how I'm able to do this. I really don't," though his tone sounded believable his eyes seemed to falter and his words were almost too intentional. "There may very well be a conduit on me, one that maybe I don't recognize as an instrument," _or do you?_, Draco thought to himself. His guess came back as a resounding _yes_. "but in any event I seem to be able to do magic, with some level of control even if it is a little bit tricky. I think that this is the most positive thing that has happened to _us,_ not just to me, so let's not get divided over this," he said reasonably. Draco thought about this for a few seconds, trying his best to look pensive, but still on edge. In truth he was giddy with excitement. The bracelets must be the answer, he simply knew it. Obtaining them would be the tricky part and manipulating Harry had always proven to be an elusive accomplishment for Draco. He regarded Harry briefly with a look of disdain that he hoped would be convincing. It must have been, because Harry's face softened even further as he took a tentative step towards Draco and spoke.

"I'm sorry about what I said about your father." the phrase appeared to cause him a sort of physical pain and Draco was hard-pressed not to show his satisfaction.

"Alright," he said making sure not to seem too comfortable. He regarded Harry with the slightest air of suspicion before sighing deeply and stepping towards him. He glanced at his toes as if they held the answer and then back up to Harry's face. "I don't think that _that_ is going to be an adequate dinner for two full grown men, Lord Potter, summoner of pieces," he said, regarding the slimy sea dweller with mild disgust. Harry was trying to appeal to him now, and he didn't want to seem completely out of character, so a snarky comment was deemed both necessary and appropriate. Harry smiled broadly at him before summoning another fish, this time of more substance.

"I not a big fan of sushi to begin with," Harry said, after staring at the two dead fish for a few moments, seemingly perplexed.

"Well what seems to be the problem, Harry Potter, sole and divine ruler of cave magic?" Draco asked. Surely Harry had, in his time on the run, taken the time to learn how to conjure a smokeless fire. Sure, a regular non-magical fire would eat up the oxygen in the cave before they could asphyxiate on the smoke, but for the two of them conjuring a harmless one should be easy. "Well?" he prompted. Still Harry stared with ambivalence at the two fish, his brow knitted with concerted thought.

"I can't do it, I can't make a fire," Harry said as if his world was dissolving. "I mean I can make a fire, but the smoke would kill us. I have no idea how to create heat to cook them."

Draco felt his chest move steadily into his stomach with disappointment. "But in those months that you were out there? How did they not find you if you were smoking up the bloody forest every night?"

"Hermione always did it. I must've heard her recite the spell a hundred times but I simply don't know what it is," Harry said in a monotone that suggested his purposeful detachment from the situation at hand.

"There must be some way though!" Draco yelled in undirected anger. "Do you know any heating charms? We could boil them!" he suggested enthusiastically, staring at Harry, hoping that his head would suddenly turn and reflect an expression of recollection. But still Harry sat with his legs folded, elbows propping up his chin, and stared hard at the fish as if their scales held the answers like the pages of one of their long ago abandoned text books. Draco could hardly breathe, the situation was so unjust. Here they were, finally the holders of magic, stuck in a cave for three days without eating and they were staring at food they had no way of eating safely. Just as his spirits felt as they had sunken as low as they could however, Harry turned around with a quizzical look in his eyes. "What? Have you remembered the spell?" Draco chirped.

"No," Harry answered quickly and Draco felt himself become even crosser than before. "But, we could eat them raw if I cleaned them." Draco was already certain he didn't like any plan that involved eating raw fish.

"That's positively disgusting Potter! How are you going to clean them? "

"Really, Draco how did you ever get through Hogwarts without knowing a cleansing spell?" Harry asked playfully. The memories incited by the comment made Draco feel anything but playful as he recalled blistering roots in Herbology that exploded with a foul-smelling green pus at the slightest jostle, potions gone awry that stained the skin for a fortnight leaving honey-colored bruises in their wake if not removed quickly and blood-yielding mistakes in Transfiguration. If anything, these associations disgusted Draco, making him far less willing to yield to Harry's forthcoming argument.

"But that's for cleaning up dirt, or spilt things! That's not the same as taking th-the _germs_ off of a fish!" he sounded like a young child accusing a girl of having cooties.

"On the contrary," Harry said flippantly, which only served to aggravate Draco more. "Whenever I found myself in the hospital for the umpteenth time, Madam Pomfrey would perform a very simple cleansing spell on my superficial scrapes and cuts to keep them from getting infected before she healed them. Now that is a spell that I know by heart."

"I don't know, what if it doesn't work? We could become very ill and we are certainly not in a first rate medical establishment."

"Hell we don't even have a First Aid kit!" Harry said with some force. "But we still need to eat! We've got food right here in front of us!" he insisted, gesturing rigidingly at the fish.

"What's a First Aid kit?" Draco asked quietly, but Harry had already turned his back on him to face the glossy water dwellers and to recite the spell.

"_Purgo Morbus_!" his voice echoed down the length of their dwelling with such force that for a moment Draco felt as though his neck had gotten hot where Harry's hands had held it the night before.

* * *

Draco's mood was very apparently foul, Harry decided as they sat staring at their crudely set table. In many ways he felt as though the bastard deserved what he was getting for being so unthankful for the food that was before them. After all, Harry had done all of the work to attain it, he hadn't done anything! And still he had the nerve to stare at the generously filled stone platter before them with disdain and something akin to suspicion in his glare. Harry shifted uncomfortably as he was forced to remind himself that Draco's suspicions were not unfounded. He twisted the beads of his bracelet nervously before reminding himself not to drop hints and then returned his hands to the table.

His fork still held a chunk of salmon-colored flesh with a bite taken out of it. He chewed at the gelatin texture of the fish in his mouth, willing his tongue not to taste it. _Swallow,_ he told himself firmly, _just get it over with._ And with that he pushed the barely chewed oily morsel to the back of his mouth and down his throat. The sliding feeling made him want to gag it right back out but he held it down, trying to look as pleased with the fishy aftertaste as he could. Looking up with watery eyes he could've sworn that through the blur of tears, the faintest look of concern had graced Draco's tightened lips and furrowed brow. As he blinked away the wetness though, he found he was most certainly looking into the face of an extremely malcontented aristocrat. It was strange to Harry how Draco still looked as though he were royalty. There was just something in the way he carried himself that made him seem larger than he was, and more confident; there was no doubt in Harry's mind that this was an intentional and well trained habit.

"It's delicious," Harry lied through puckered lips. Draco's scowl only sharpened. "Really," he insisted and as if it could prove his point further he forked the remaining bit into his mouth as quickly as he could and swallowed after chewing just once.

"You have many talents Mister Potter, but let me tell you, acting is _not_ one of them," Draco said icily.

Harry shrugged off the comment briskly. "Oh come on, it's really not half bad and besides, you must be starving."

"Well if you like it so much, I'd feel positively terrible taking the pleasure of eating it all away," Draco drawled, but even as he did, he picked up his fork gingerly and dug it into the smaller of the two fish. Without missing a beat he ripped a small chunk from the fish's side and, after removing the skin with his pointer and thumb, pushed the lump into his mouth. His eyes didn't water and his face, while already sour, did not pucker around disapproving taste buds. He chewed several times, pulled a fish bone from his lips and swallowed.

"Well it's certainly not 'delicious', as you put it, but I can't say it's the worst thing I have ever tasted." He wiped his fingertips on the not-quite-thick enough napkin that Harry had transfigured from a rock.

"What?" Harry said in mild disgust and exaggerated irritation. "After all that nonsense that you put me through? I'd hate to hear what the worst thing you ever tasted was."

"Well then I guess it's very fortunate for you that I don't care to retell the story of it. I'd rather not lose my appetite at this juncture. You cleaned it, but you can't preserve it and things like this go bad rather quickly," he said in a way that was sterile with practicality. With that, he tore into the fish once more, this time taking a much larger piece and wrapped his lips around the fork in a way that almost looked grateful. They ate in silence for a few minutes before Harry stood up and wiped his hands on his own napkin. The transfiguration had been a hard one – turning something from rock to paper – and his skin felt slightly raw after rubbing the coarse texture.

"Oh, sweetheart," Draco mocked in his most saccharine tone, "lose your appetite already?" he leaned over the back of the rocky chair casually and gave Harry an appraising look that made the skin on the back of his neck and shoulders prickle hot for a second.

"No, I'm full," he said honestly. After eating so little, the sudden rush of rich flesh overwhelmed his stomach, making him feel slightly bloated and uncomfortable. "_Scourgify_," he said, with his hand over his plate, but nothing happened. After trying a few times with his hand placed against the plate, he finally succeeded in cleaning it.

"Here," said Draco pushing his plate towards Harry with an irritating clatter. "You can do mine too, I'm no longer hungry," he looked at Harry so smugly that he almost protested the blatant disrespect of the motion before recalling that he was the only one of the two of them that could perform magic. Of course it didn't have to be that way, a nagging voice whispered at him in the back of his mind. He recognized this voice as the sound of his conscience and immediately pushed back at it. He felt his bracelets slide forward towards his hand and make a soft clicking sound as they collided. Draco's eyes could've burnt a whole though him, as he watched Harry's hand caress the stone in a sweeping motion to rid the plate of its contents.

They walked back to the water, without any better way of dealing with the remains of their meal, and dumped the partially eaten remains back into the water. Harry's Lumos spell from earlier still shined brightly along the path back to their room. They walked slowly side by side through the shockingly broad length of tunnel. Each step around the curved cavern revealed yet another strange secret of the cave. There were jars along shelves and stone cabinets here and there that could only be spotted when one realized that a wooden knob seemed awfully out of place sticking out of the rock. Upon reaching the room Draco decided to comment.

"We should get some rest now, but tomorrow we should put all of our energy into exploring the cave. There very well may be clues hidden in those cabinets as to who put us here. If nothing else, there may be some things to make our stay slightly more tolerable." Harry stared blankly at him but nodded his head once in agreement. The fatigue of the day had left him feeling numb and his thoughts were pre-occupied by the raw fish that seemed to be fervently fighting to get out of his stomach one way or another. He felt as though opening his mouth would provide the escape route it was looking for.

"Stomach bothering you?" Draco asked quietly. At first Harry was perplexed as to how Draco could've known, but soon realized that his hand was resting lightly over his abdomen and he could only guess at the shade of green that his face had taken on. He nodded once and felt the burn of stomach acid in the center of his chest.

"Try a calming charm," Draco suggested. "a simple one is _sedo abdomen_. My mother used to use it all the time; her side has a sensitive palate."

Harry reluctantly muttered the words wondering if Draco had just made him perform some awful sort of curse on himself. His fears were quickly abated, however, as he felt a tingling warmth spread over his torso as if someone had poured steaming water over him. The relief that followed did not stay isolated at the point of his hand, but spread into his shoulders and neck, leaving him in a slight state of euphoria. Still he felt something rising up through his chest, though not in the painful way it had been before. He opened his mouth without hesitation with the vaguest sense of well being and let out a rumbling belch that tasted strongly of fish. He grinned contentedly to himself.

"Better?" Draco asked with a slight smirk, reminding Harry that he was not alone.

"Yes," he said and then added, "Thanks."

"Potter?"

"Yes?"

"Could I trouble you to do that spell once more?" Harry looked up at Draco in surprise. The request showed blatant vulnerability which was strange coming from his boyhood nemesis. But as he looked more closely at the other man's face he saw the faintest hue of green in his otherwise colorless cheeks. A sharp twinge of sympathy welled up within him and he forgot the obtuse way that Draco had been acting earlier in light of his obvious illness. He crawled towards Draco and rested his hand firmly on his stomach and felt the thin cotton of his night shirt shift easily over the hot skin that surely rested beneath.

"_Sedo abdomen_," he incanted softly and let his hand drop to his side a little earlier than was necessary. He waited for a moment for Draco's affirmation that the charm had worked.

"It didn't help," Draco said with a slight frown pulling at the corners of his lips. He looked down at his stomach as though it were a stubborn piece of equipment not reacting properly even after being fixed. Harry screwed up his eyes in a squint that pressed the pads of his glasses into the bridge of his nose. He placed his hand once more on the spot and found it was slightly warmer than it had been before. This was too intimate. Draco could not be alive, truly a living being under that fanciful façade of cold sophistication. It almost would've felt more natural to have discovered a cold iron hollow instead of the hot flesh of a person. The muscles twitched under his hand and he was helplessly aware of the undulating breaths that pumped his partner into life, making him feel even less objective. The first mistake he made was pondering these thoughts for a split second too long. The second was looking up. Draco's face was somewhat contorted in such a way that he no longer looked affluent and proud, but small and poor. His dirt covered face and inappropriate dress made him look more like a pauper than a prince. This realization was quickly interrupted by a flash of cold steel. Draco's eyes had met his brimming with accusation.

"Thinking about killing me instead?" Draco asked with vitriol malice in his voice. Shocked by the accusation, Harry said nothing. "Well make up your mind, will you?" Harry's hand was still on his stomach and he suddenly realized the power that Draco had given him in making himself open to attack; a very un-Slytherin move, Harry thought.

"_Sedo abdomen_," he said firmly and felt Draco instantly relax against his hand. He kept it there for several moments, as if the feeling of relief and the proof of his innocent intentions would be dissolved with the break in contact.

"I never fancied you as the type to wear jewelry," Draco said suddenly and reached up a hand to touch Harry's bracelets. He quickly recoiled, thwarting Draco's attempt to touch them by centimeters.

"What's wrong? I'm not going to sting you, am I?" Draco almost chuckled. Harry felt his cheeks going red rapidly and knew that he must create an excuse.

"Ginny made them for me," he said defensively, curling his wrist under his other arm, hiding the wooden beads from view. This wasn't entirely untrue; she had in fact made the bracelets for him. Their importance hardly came from who they had been made by but rather what they had been made from. Draco cocked his head to the side doubtfully and raised an eyebrow skeptically. Harry braced himself for an onslaught of berating questions, his mind buzzing with viable excuses for the way he had reacted, but the questions never came.

"You're far too much of a romantic," was all Draco said before lying down and rolling over to face the wall. Had Harry not been so thoroughly exhausted, he would've been suspicious of how easily Draco had dropped the subject. For the time being however, he was just glad to not have to make up any more lies. As Draco had so eloquently put it before, he was hardly an actor. "By the way, do you think you've got a good enough handle on that magic to make a pillow or two?"

"Yeah, you know, I think I just might. They'll probably be rather firm though." And firm they were. Turning a rock into a pillow proved vastly more difficult than Harry had guessed. If the napkins had been slightly coarse, the pillow slip felt like sandpaper. Finally, after numerous attempts at correcting and shaping the two pillows, they seemed to give at least slightly to the touch, and the covers, while not soft by any means, just felt as though they had been over-starched. They settled in as comfortably as possible with Harry on one side of the room and Draco on the other. Harry almost had to bite his tongue to keep from asking Draco why they were not lying side by side this evening. As he whispered _Finite Incantatum_ into the cave, he saw Draco shiver in the dimming light. _Next project will be a comforter,_ he thought to himself as he felt the chill of the cave edge its way back into the space that the excitement of the day had kept well heated. Still, he tucked his arms around himself in his best defense from the cold and settled in for another uncomfortable night of sleep. He made sure to keep his wrists tucked firmly under his ribs.

* * *

Chapter 4 is waiting in the wings! Thank you to my wonderful BETA, for her patience with me these past few months while I over came earth shattering writers block!


	4. Save it for Your Savior

This fanfic picks up with Harry four years after the defeat of Voldemort. Harry is 21 and lives with Ron, Hermione and Ginny in a small apartment in London. He and Ron both work for the ministry, Hermione is perusing S.P.E.W. and Ginny is a member of the holly head harpies (keeping in line with what JKR has told us about their post Hogwarts experience). Here however we veer off the course that JKR has set and explore a scenario that doesn't include the kids, etc. Some of the things I write may seem a little bit out of character but I tried to remain to true what I felt was the deepest sense of the characters while also allowing room for them to mature. Enjoy!

I acknowledge that none of these wonderful characters belong to me but are the property and creation of the always brilliant J.K. Rowlling. I thank her for building a world that is truly complex and beautiful for all of us to enjoy.

**NOTE!** I am posting **TWO** chapters in a row, so if you have not read the THIRD chapter, which most likely you haven't, please do so before reading this!

* * *

The Cave ch. 4

The man at the foot of the steps lit his cigarette, facing against the wind. The fire crackled in and out from his lighter several times before he completed his task successfully. He achieved this by pulling up the collar of his tattered and beaten coat around his earlobes and puffing madly once the paper had caught. The coat hardly seemed appropriate for the weather; it had been drizzling incessantly for the past week and the distinct chill of early November hung in the air like a knife ready to cut the lingering warmth from pedestrians. Draco had never seen a lighter before and had jumped back in surprise as the bum produced fire seemingly from nothing. He stared shamelessly at the bum until he turned around to face him. His features were dark and the skin around his eyes and cheeks hung from his bones like that of an old bulldog, giggling slightly with every smoky pull he took.

"What?" he said suddenly, almost forcing Draco to jump out of his handmade crushed-velvet lined cloak. The bum picked up a bottle wrapped in a paper bag and pulled it close to his breast as if it were a shield and the cigarette, a sword.

"N-nothing," Draco had stammered back against the wind. "just a little lost, I'm er, not from around here." He was speaking to the Muggle as if he had the upper hand. Not only a Muggle but clearly an urchin of the street. The man's face brightened.

"Oh well then," his breath reeked of stale tobacco and gin, even in the crisp open air of the street, and Draco felt he might lose his supper if the interaction lasted much longer. "Where ya lookin' ter get to?" he asked with a toothless smile. Draco reached quickly into his pocket and took out the folded paper with the hastily scribbled address that he had copied out of the rental section. "Cheap Rooms For Rent," the ad had read plainly. "No Pets, No Children, No Couples, Smokers Allowed," and the address had followed. Draco wasn't certain at the time what a smoker was but knew he wanted to be far away from children and pets. The bum reached out his purple-nailed filthy fingers to take the paper and Draco took special care not to touch him. He scanned the paper carefully and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"Well surely a young man o' your standing n' prestige ain't goin' thar'?" he said as sweetly as a balding bum could, though Draco could detect the slightest hint of sarcasm. Draco felt his heart sink. If a homeless man could criticize this place, it would definitely fall below his standards. He simply nodded in response. The man nodded back as if he could understand the position that Draco was in. Of course he could have no idea what Draco had been through in the past week and Draco was hardly inclined to have a heart to heart. He patiently sat through the twisting directions: right, left, straight for two blocks, then right and right again. He was certain the directions were redundant but the man seemed to know the streets of London like the back of his scaly hand. He didn't know the street names but referred to small landmarks instead. He scratched his bristly stubble before coming to the destination and conclusion.

"Before ya go," the man started to say as Draco thanked him quickly, "Would ya' happen ter have a bit o' change to spare?" Draco pulled his pockets inside out to show that he honestly had nothing to offer the man and apologized.

"S'alright," the man said smiling sadly. "With the worl' the way it is today, no one's got time fer their fellow man." He turned away and started to stumble back down the blustery alley. Draco watched him as he pulled at the fraying edges of his overcoat, forming new holes across his shoulders with every step that he took. He fingered his wand in the inner pocket of his cloak and felt it tap lightly against the change that had been left over from his dinner. Perhaps the Muggle world was not so different from the wizarding one, he thought as he pinched a hidden five pound note between his fingers. It didn't have to be this way though. Being kinder to those around him wouldn't directly benefit him, of course, but it would certainly give them more of a reason to be kind back. Without wasting another second, he ducked into the doorway that the bum had been huddled next to and aimed his wand carefully at the hunched form of the man (who he had just decided was the kindest person he had ever met) and whispered a simple warming charm as he took a swig from his paper-clad alcoholic salvation. The man became visibly relaxed and looked at the bottle in blatant surprise.

"Good gin," he said audibly and Draco smiled.

For reasons beyond his grasp the memory of this incident was nibbling gently at the corners of Draco's mind as he stood over Harry's unconscious body. His lips were parted slightly and he made a hushing sound with every deep exhalation that he took. He was so pitifully vulnerable in that moment, Draco thought with a sneer. He could take the bracelets and have his magic, and then he could take Harry's life and have his revenge and all of it would be so easy if only his hands would stop shaking. He didn't know how well he would be able to master the bracelets. As much as it pained him to acknowledge it, Harry was a uniquely powerful wizard and if it proved to be such a hard task for Harry to use them it may be damned near impossible for Draco. His mind roved over the various difficulties of the day.

Morning had started out innocently enough with the discovery that Harry's watch (given to him by the Weaselys for his seventeenth birthday) was still functioning and they could now, to some extent, measure time in a less arbitrary way. Really they had no idea how long they had been wherever they were but in their minds they were reaching the end of the fourth day. They had decided to go to sleep early in an effort to regulate the clocks ticking inside of their brains, because by Harry's watch they had woken up at nearly two in the afternoon. After this realization however, the day heated up fairly quickly. The first task at hand was to explore the newly revealed cabinets of the cave. They had not ventured into the majority of the cave since their first waking moments as it had not been particularly interesting to do so at the time. Now they proceeded, hands clasped around teacups full of vibrant light, into the ominous shadows and secrets of the cave.

"Look at this!" Harry had shouted in delight down to Draco.

"I'm right here, you don't have to shout," Draco had hollered back with just as much volume. He was just cross about being pulled from the interesting contents of one particular cabinet. There seemed to be all manner of potion ingredients from mandrake roots to gillyweed; Professor Snape would have been envious. Harry didn't have the patience to go through each jar of clearly labelled herbs and spices, which no doubt had been his downfall in potions. Sighing audibly he picked himself up and found Harry standing next to a stone door way.

"This wasn't here a few seconds ago!"

"There was a knob! I pulled it and the outline of a door appeared in black, all I had to do was touch it and it opened! Look inside!" Harry gestured wildly. At first glance there was nothing special about the passage which was stone walled and very narrow. Warily, Draco followed it a short distance and found it opened to reveal a marble bathroom of sorts. A stand-alone tub without a faucet, a washing basin and what looked like a crudely fashioned ceramic toilet stood side by side. A mirrored cabinet stuck out over the basin and Draco caught his reflection for the first time in the cave. He flinched slightly at the sight of his matted down dirty hair, his filth covered cheeks and dirt-stained shirt. Harry, being oblivious to this as most things, shoved past him to the cabinet and pried it open. It contained all manner of toiletries from tissue paper to various types of scented soaps, and extended back much further than first glance would've suggested.

"Well that's good at least. I call first bath," Draco said off handedly.

"Oh no you don't!" Harry chastised, waving his finger in Draco's face. "How are you going to get water in there without magic? I doubt your scrawny arms could carry so much as a gallon, let alone a whole tub full," he finished smugly. He was certainly right, thought Draco, nor would he have ever dreamed of carrying the water for his own bath. The rest of the day was taken up by Harry's attempts at levitation and lightening charms and Draco's efforts to clean up after each one failed. By the end of the day they had managed to fill the tub and Harry had gotten his bath after a less than delightful dinner.

Draco was just happy to have some time to himself. He needed to plan. Harry's gloating was ill-conceived, because after tonight he would be the sole holder of magic in their private get away. Really though there was not much to plan when it came down to it. Draco was not ashamed to admit that he was a natural thief. The money his mother had given him was hardly enough to pay his rent, let alone feed him and keep him dressed properly. Draco, who had never planned on having a proper job found that shop lifting wasn't too far off of the mark from what he had originally intended to do with his life, namely steal, lie and cheat to gain influence.

He had started out small, lifting paper backs from the drugstore down the street. The pages of these novellas were always littered with the cheapest of post-menopausal fantasies. Lust always took the form of love in these stories. This seemed like the most accurate description of love as far as he had been concerned at the time and while his views were somewhat cynical, he often found himself oddly comforted – as well as aroused – by the accounts of bronze-chested foreign men finding and feasting upon the unlikeliest of targets. Always these women had secrets, a teenage pregnancy given up for adoption perhaps, or an abusive husband, in some cases their secrets were chemical in nature. They never ceased to fulfill the archetypal plot line laid for them; woman attracts kind, gentle, handsome man, woman hides her secret from man and because of her own failure at honesty expects that he too is being dishonest, man finds issue and solves it, proving himself trustworthy. Draco appreciated the stupid simplicity of these books as a metaphor for the ideal life. Everyone wanted to be saved from themselves.

He, however, believed that he needed no saving. It became his ritual to wonder the streets, hood pulled up to protect his ears from the cold and his identity, inured to recognition. From novels to groceries to designer bags and wallets, he was relentless in his pursuit of fine things to sell. A simple disillusionment charm and the security cameras hardly posed a threat as he walked out of the doors as though the most normal thing a man could do was waltz into the local department store, sweep up an entire rack of women's pocket books and wink at the Confunded security guard as he left. Nothing was excluded from his five finger discount.

So why, now when it really mattered, could he not summon the strength to snag a couple of wooden beaded bracelets from none other than his worst enemy. Had Harry placed a spell on them or perhaps on himself to prevent such an act from occurring? No, came back the solid answer, something that complex was still out of Harry's reach for now. Then how, if not by magic, could Harry be keeping him from taking what would surely push him into dominance?

As Harry finished his bath, Draco returned to one of the endless cabinets to explore its contents. The minute letters on the herb bottles had started to give him a headache, so for the time being he had moved on to other things. He found a drawer filled with old puzzle games and another with wizarding board games that he was unfamiliar with. He pulled one of the puzzles and began to manipulate it out of boredom. It was shaped like a female figurine but with very little detail. He sat down on the floor and started to pull the pieces out, mixed them up and soon found that each wooden piece could fit with another at least two ways. Every time he plugged one in an alternate way its shape would shift in his hand. The pieces by themselves were too small to get a good picture of what it might be.

"Interesting," he said aloud to himself.

"What is?" it was Potter of course. He stood behind him, hair still dripping wet from the bath and a fluffy white towel in hand.

"How was your bath?" Draco asked innocently but Harry ignored the question.

"What's interesting?" an air of suspicion hung between the two of them.

"Oh nothing, just this puzzle."

"Ah, I see," he turned his back and began to walk away.

"Where did you get the towel?"

"It was in one of the cabinets in there. I tell you, who ever made this place really thought of everything," Harry quipped as though they were in a five star hotel.

"Yeah, everything except for food, fire, drinking water that doesn't drip from goodness knows where, blankets, pillows, a proper bed-"

"For all we know those things might be here, just hidden," Harry seemed almost defensive. Draco raised his eye brow in dismay. Harry, sensing the obvious tension, changed the subject. "Did you want to take a bath? Now that we've figured out how to levitate a few bowls of water at a time, changing it shouldn't be too difficult."

"Really?" he had assumed that Potter had intended to take first crack at the bath and then leave Draco to wallow in his dirty water. That's certainly what he would've done in the same situation. Harry put his hand out to Draco as if in a testament to his offer. This was a Gryffindor he was dealing with, he reminded himself and accepted the hand.

"Of course!" Harry said in dismay. "You think I want a roommate that stinks up the entire house!" he said though not unkindly.

"House, eh?" Draco raised his eyebrow once more in doubt.

"Well, you know what I mean, I just get tired of referring to it as 'The Cave' all the time, it's so dreadful sounding, don't you think? The sound of it just makes the walls press in on me."

Draco fell into step next to Harry, cauldrons in hand. They walked in silence for a while until they arrived at the water's edge. The walls winked back at him in a way that he could only call flirtatious and therefore appealing. The water reflected the vast cavern, serving to multiply its grandeur twofold.

"House is too plain," Draco said breaking the surface of the water with his first cauldron.

"What?"

"House is too plain, I mean if we are trying soften the feel of the place," his home had never been a house, it had been a Manor. His family owned several properties and all of them had their proper designation and title. "This could be our Italian Waterside Villa, or Crystal Palace."

Harry thought about this for a moment and then laughed. "Well 'Crystal Palace' sounds more like a strip club than a home, so how about Waterside Villa." Draco agreed to this title and filled the next cauldron. After all four had been topped off they slowly levitated them back toward the wash room, hoping desperately that they wouldn't crash to the floor. They continued their little chatter through the walk, mutually fantasizing about the improvements and projects to take on. When they reached bathroom Harry drained the tub of its water though it was not apparently connected to any plumbing. Once full, he murmured a few warming charms until the water had started to steam. The wisps of vapor curled upwards appealingly and Draco's skin crawled in a futile effort to close the gap between itself and the warmth promised by the water.

"The towels are up here, the soap and such is all in here, but you know that already so I guess," he paused awkwardly. The duties of a host did not come naturally to Potter as they did to Draco's family.

"I'll be fine," he cut in tersely. Harry blushed and frowned slightly before walking out without another word. Finally alone, he shed his clothing like an old snake skin and slid into the water gratefully. He found a clean wash cloth hanging from a hook on the side of the tub and soaked in thoroughly. He was surprised by the caliber of toiletries in the room. Why had their captor gone to such lengths to prepare this place? And what enemy could he and Potter possibly have in common? There was his father, he thought bitterly, but it was highly unlikely that such a broken old man could escape from Azkaban, especially now that they had amped up security and decommissioned the Dementors. Beyond that, if his father had been behind all of this, the transaction would've been far simpler. Torture and then death.

Many Death Eaters had come out as hypercritical of the Dark Lord after the war had drawn to an end. It was a strange balance that they seemed to strike between criticizing his approach rather than the substance of the issues. Every one of them wanted to claim more distance from the fallen leader so as to avoid the harsh punishments that they deserved. In true Slytherin fashion they tried to play to the values of both sides, firmly standing against any and all incidents of the war while holding steadfast to the ideals upon which they were committed. The biggest critique of his approach had been how to deal with the same man who would lay helplessly before Draco a mere hour after these thoughts had lolled through his head. Many of them had had numerous chances to off the boy throughout the years, his father being no exception to this. But every attempt on the boy's life had been so complex, so contrived. Capture, identify, torture, mock and then, if the mood was right and all hope seemed lost for the boy, and only then could he try and inevitably fail to kill him. Keep it simple, stupid, seemed to be the new mantra for the Death Eaters or at least what was left of them after the war.

They claimed that Voldemort had taken control of their otherwise peaceful movement, that his power was impossible to deny. What had supposedly started as a movement to liberate all of wizarding kind had taken a dark turn towards revenge, cruelty and self promotion. In the end the stories just didn't seem to line up and all those charged were punished to the fullest extent of the law. Once again, his father was no exception. Still, if anything had come out of the specious claims, it was that the vast majority of followers had truly been dissatisfied with the ruler and not the rule. The psychological thrill of torture and the catharsis of revenge held no value to those left to rot in the dank prison cells of Azkaban, especially not when compared to the white light of victory. If a second thing could be learned, it was that the next leader deemed important enough to warrant a gravel-voiced prophetic claim at defeat would be promptly ousted from their non-existent ranks. If a movement still did exist and Draco's father was at the center of it there would be two sole goals: efficiency and victory. Forming a cave-like prison packed with all of the amenities for your enemies was hardly efficient, Draco thought as he squeezed warm water out of his wash cloth over his head.

He watched as the drops formed at the ends of his spiked bangs, swelling from the size of pin points to lady bugs. Then at his slightest movement they would free themselves and fall from whence they came, sending light ripples through the murky water. He rolled back his shoulders in an effort to rid himself of the tumultuous thoughts and slid down into the frothy depths of the tub.

* * *

Draco sure was acting odd. Not necessarily odd in a bad way though, Harry thought as he practiced his levitation charm. He wasn't much less petulant, really, or even more agreeable as a person. The change was a matter of acceptance. He wasn't looking at Harry with daggers in his eyes any longer. He had accepted Harry's dominance. To say that he felt as though Draco was trustworthy would've been a stretch of monumental proportions, but still he felt Draco was far more harmless than before.

"_Wingardium leviosa_!" he incanted. He was making progress. What had started out shaky with one water filled cauldron was now relatively stable with three. Magic through the bracelets was far more tactile, almost more intuitive than through a wand. With each spell he cast he found a better understanding of how to control and manipulate this magic. The term "hands on" came to mind. Each spell was far more effective when he pictured his hands actually doing the task and the more vividly he could see it before him the easier it became. It forced him to be more inventive. He pictured two hands sprouting from his wrist, one extravagantly large and the other fairly normal, if one ignored the multiple joints and long stalk that connected it to him. He picked up each cauldron carefully and placed it on the palm of the enormous hand and then slowly did a lap around the cave. About half way through his ten minute journey, one of the four cauldrons began to lose balance and slopped some water over its brim before he could steady it.

"That was close," he said to no one in particular. He had been a quiet boy throughout his childhood under the steps. Now whenever at work he found himself making little comments to himself out loud. It helped him to organize his scattered thoughts.

"What was close?" the voice startled him so much that all four of his cauldrons came crashing down to the ground. Next to them stood a frightened looking Draco Black. "Oh, I'm sorry."

Harry sighed to calm himself before responding. He looked up at Draco to find the man stooping to pick up one of the fallen containers with a slight frown on his face.

"Nothing, now," he said feeling decidedly petulant at being interrupted.

"I said I was sorry," Draco said sincerely. "I guess we won't be Apparating out of here anytime soon then. We'd probably end up splinched in three different countries." Harry tried his best to smile at the weakly attempted joke but found his lips were far too comfortable in their frown.

"That's assuming that whoever put us here didn't put any anti-Apparation wards over the place. I would say that's unlikely. At best."

"I know a spell that would be able to tell us," Draco offered innocently. Harry wasn't sure why it bothered him so much but even he had to admit that his retort was far more vicious than the offer had warranted.

"Did you learn that from your Death Eater days?" the comment had slipped from his lips before he could stifle it. The look on Draco's face was priceless; his lips were slightly parted and his eyes were wide in a dumbfounded expression.

"Yes."

There was a palpable silence between the two of them until Harry spoke again. "As I am the only one here who can do magic, there will be no Dark spells cast in this cavern."

"It's not Dark magic," Draco replied quietly, not daring to glance at him. "I was offering my help."

Harry looked at him quizzically. "Why should I trust you? What reason have you given me to trust you?"

"What reason have I given you not to?"

"Oh dear, let me count the ways! How many times did you try to kill Dumbledore in our sixth year? How many times have you set me up or gotten me detention? Oh, and let's not forget your attempts on my life, no let's not be so hasty here that we forget those-"

"I was just a child!" but Harry continued on his tirade.

"And do you still have the filthy black rash on your arm, because that would be pertinent to our discussion-"

"I was a child then, this isn't fair!" Draco cried.

"Well so was I, Draco!"

"And you were just as influenced by those above you as I was! You were just lucky enough to be on the winning side."

"No, it's not about winning or losing, it's about right and wrong!" shouted Harry as he threw down the cauldron he was holding with a loud clang. "After all of these years you still can't understand that, it's pitiful."

"And after all of these years you can't forgive the misdeeds of a seventeen year old whose father left him an un-payable debt to the most powerful wizard in the world?" Harry was backing him against the wall of the cave. He wasn't sure when he had started moving but now he was mere inches away from the other man with his fists curled tightly into knots.

"Dumbledore was the most powerful wizard in the world," Harry said after drawing a tremulous breath.

In a voice so soft that Harry could barely hear it above the ringing in his ears, Draco whispered his response. "And he manipulated you for far longer and in many varied ways."

"Shut up!" Harry cried. "You don't know anything about the place he was in!"

"Do you?" Draco challenged, leaning forward so that his nose almost touched Harry's.

"No one does, no one ever will! How could they?"Harry answered, but he was running out of steam. Even though they had obtained food their meek diet was still leaving them feeling vaguely fatigued.

"I don't know what you want from me, Potter. Is it evidence of some sort of religious penitence offered to the gods? Some sign that I have disavowed myself from the old ways? I would've hoped that my disownment would have sufficed. Clearly I was mistaken." Draco was staring at him, unblinking, and very suddenly Harry felt ashamed. For reasons he could not explain he felt a tugging at his chest as he pushed himself away from Draco. Perhaps it was some uncovered-till-now commonality that they shared in not having parents, or the catharsis of his own guilt, or even sorrow for pushing away from the only other body he could relate to. He pushed the thoughts out of his head, figuring that he could return to them at a later date – the one resource they seemed not to be pressed for was time. Instead he sat down on the far side of the cavern on the ground and stared straight at Draco, who was still back against the wall with a combative look playing across his brow from eye to eye.

"You're right. I'm sorry," he said plainly. Draco, not used to his frequent outbursts, only raised a skeptical eyebrow and waited for further explanation. Harry, not being very gifted with words, struggled for a bit to find appropriate ones.

"It's hard not to go crazy here," he decided on finally, though he was disappointed when he heard how it sounded and decided to elaborate. "I just mean to say, I miss my friends. They're all I have, really. The only family I have doesn't speak to me but for a Christmas card with scribbled signatures a month after holidays are over. They must be going crazy with me missing. And here the two of us are stuck together, goodness knows where, at each other's throats. It's just maddening! I want to go back home! I thought the war was over, I thought that everything had been squared away and put in a little box with a bow on top. Sure the politics are still a mess, but the fighting and running and hiding were all supposed to be over and done with. I beat Voldemort, the flashes went off like fireworks and the press had a field day and the world was saved and all that. It was supposed to be over." He knew he wasn't making much sense and that his speech served as a poor apology. He waited for a moment to hear the expected jibe from his peer; he had after all just opened himself far more than he should've. When it didn't come he forced himself to look up from the comfort of his knees at the other man.

"Go on," Draco surprised him. "That is to say, if you have more than you would like to tell me."

Startled as he was by the invitation, it only took Harry a matter of moments to recover. Whether it was the tone of his voice or the look in his eyes, Harry wasn't sure, but Draco seemed sincere enough and so he continued. "For the majority of my life I never had anyone to share anything with. Things were normally taken from me, very rarely given to me; _no one_ had any interest whatsoever in what I had to say. When I came to Hogwarts it was a complete turnaround, to a startling degree. Everyone wanted to know me, get in my head, shake my hand, and I knew that that was just the other extreme, it wasn't what I wanted. I have, well had, what I wanted at home. A few people whom I care deeply about, who I would do anything for. I gave my life for them! The fact the Voldemort couldn't actually take it is just a footnote in my view. And now, once again, all of that has been taken away and I'm sitting in a cave with Draco M-Black, trying to figure out how to use magic again with shotty success and all I can think of is the Death Eater scum who might be behind it. It would be all I could think about if it weren't for the sheer madness of the situation itself." Feeling drained, he returned to looking at his knees. He hadn't heard Draco move, but when he looked back up he was startled to find that he was crouched on the ground in front of him.

"Listen, Harry," Draco started as he often did, "All I know about what you've been through or done has been through the books that were written after the fact and what I've seen. I trust my own eyes more than the press and this is what I've gathered so far. You're headstrong and lucky. You make it out of the worst situations not only alive but intact. You show immense loyalty to those you care about and tend not to be betrayed by them. You have surrounded yourself with people who would do anything for you and my guess is that they are doing all they can to find you right now, as we speak. In the end, I can't say I would rather be stuck in a cave with no hope for escape or survival with anyone else, if history is any indicator of our fates. But just as before, you must remember that you never did any of those great things alone. And you aren't alone now.

"If there is any hope for us, and I think there is, we must work together. You've had your defenses up and bolstered ever since we could see each other." Harry clinched his jaw, knowing that Draco meant _since you discovered you could do magic,_ but didn't interrupt. "We've been sleeping side by side for three nights now and I haven't bashed your head in with a rock yet, have I?" Harry chuckled, though whether at the joke or over embarrassment at their intimacy he couldn't decide.

"No, I haven't, and thankfully you've returned that favor. Now I must ask you, no,_ urge_ you to be forward and honest with me and I will do the same. Is there anything, anything at all that you are not telling me right now?" the question hung in the air between them and slowly drifted above their heads as it was replaced by a pregnant tension.

"Draco," Harry said placing his hand on the other boy's knee gently, "there are countless things that I am not telling you. But they'll come in time."

* * *

Draco walked up the stairs to his dingy apartment, wondering for the umpteenth time why he had moved to a Muggle complex, let alone one of such low standing. The answers were obvious, there was no place for him in the magical world as an outcast from both sides, money was tight and no one here knew him. He waved away the logic with the clicking of his keys. As he jiggled the key in the faulty lock he felt a boney hand on his arm and whorled around to find his startled-looking, old hag of a landlady blinking up at him dumbly.

"Rent's due t'morrow, dear," she croaked through her toothy smile and nodded her head as she spoke. "Don't be late agin' or I'll hafta' kick your ass out," she said with the same smiling sing-song cadence and kept nodding. Draco had been at the building for two years now and was familiar with her monthly threat, but he had never been able to shake the startling nature of her approach. Her hand shook violently as she withdrew. Her whole body seemed off kilter and about to topple over every time he saw her. She looked far older than any living thing should, though Draco had been horrified to find out she was only 83. She shook on down the hallway and knocked on the next door to deliver her message.

Finally, after several frustrated seconds, he managed to pry open the door and hoisted his folding table, remaining hand bags and poster board onto the small table in its center. 575 pounds. That would be enough for rent and dinner tomorrow. It had been a fruitful day. The Americans were in town for summer holiday and he had to make the best of it before it turned too cold to peddle. While he couldn't use magic to make people buy his wares, he was at least thankful that he could make them lighter for the trek back home.

He heard a constant thumping at the wall. No doubt the man next door was doing what he did best (finishing early) with another hooker. At least it would be over soon, he thought with minor satisfaction. Even still, the man next door, Earl, was inconsiderate in all facets of his dull and pointless existence. His music would blare, his conversations with himself were loud and went on for hours into the night as he fruitlessly honed his acting skills to an invisible audience. Yes, this was a man who had mastered the art of thoroughly satisfying himself while simultaneously doing anything he could to dissatisfy those around him. No doubt his present partner would find that out soon enough. Still, Draco had to admit as he cast a muffling charm on the adjoining walls, she did put up a good show.

There was a knock at his door just as he was about to sound block it as well. He pocketed his wand and slowly peeped out the eyehole.

"It's me!" a female voice chirped. "Amy."

"And Crissy!" another voice interrupted. These two girls had rented the room down the hall from his just the month before. They were college students from America, studying abroad for a year and had been overly social, much to his chagrin. Like many of the Americans whom he had met, they were 'overly' most things. Flirtatious, cheerful, forward and certainly uncultured. Perhaps some time in London would set them straight, though he wasn't particularly hopeful. Bracing himself, he opened the door for what he was sure would be a barrage of forceful invitations and interruptions.

"Hi," he said coolly. Amy was a slender girl from New York with long mouse brown hair and large brown eyes to match. When she smiled she had a dimple that formed in only one cheek and he found it strangely endearing though he detested most things asymmetrical. She almost always wore a pair of blue or black tightly fit jeans and a t-shirt with words that seemed to make little sense together (today her shirt read Neutral Milk Hotel, and while he wasn't sure what it meant, he was certain he wanted nothing to do with it). Her roommate, Crissy, was short and curvy, straight out of Texas and had light blue eyes and reddish blonde hair (though he was certain it wasn't natural and clashed badly with her chocolate colored brows). She was likely to be spotted in boot cut jeans and a sweater. She would always pick these sweaters seemingly for the plainness of their color and the assurance of their modesty, but they were just low cut enough in the collar to show off a simple gold cross. Even still, she batted her eyelashes at him and smiled coyly from behind her friend.

"Can we come in?" Amy asked after an awkward moment.

"Sure." He thought that Crissy looked near fainting with excitement. He closed the door behind them regretfully.

"Do you have any pot?" Amy asked after Crissy prodded her nervously. While oddly phrased, he did have three pots of varying sizes.

"Sure, what size do you need?" he rose and walked to the kitchen.

"Oh a dime would be fine! I mean we have some and would definitely share if you wanted to come over." Thoroughly confused, he assumed a 'dime' meant a small one. Why he would want to share their pots simply because they needed his struck him as extraordinarily strange, but nevertheless, not wanting to appear odd, he spared no time in retrieving a small pot. The two girls looked from him to the pot and back again before bursting into unbridled laughter.

"What?" he said brimming with frustration and confusion.

"Pot, not _a _pot," Amy gasped through hiccupping fits of giggles. "You know, weed, dope, wacky tobaccy, Mary Jane…" the list went on as Crissy nervously hushed her roommate and all he could do was stare in baffled amazement as they seemed to speak another language. "Haze, marajuana? You really have never heard of it?"

"I went to-"

"You went to boarding school, we know! Was your school under a rock in a cave on the moon? You _have _to come over, you just have to. We're going to change your world and open your mind." While the prospect _did_ seem worth interest, they were still Muggles and foreign ones at that.

"I really can't, though I do appreciate the invitation, I have to-"

"What, get up early to sell stolen hand bags?" Amy mocked. Draco felt his cheeks burning as Crissy drew in a sharp breath of shock.

"You don't really steal, do you?" she asked looking horror stricken. But before he could answer, her chatty friend took the lead.

"Oh why does it even matter, what we're about to do is just as illegal. Come on Drake," he cringed at the nick name, "just this once! You _never_ come over and I'm absolutely sick and tired of your excuses. Put that pot down and come over." Illegal, eh. Now his interest was piqued. Grudgingly he agreed, though not before stressing that he really, truly, honestly couldn't stay long but just wanted to see what all of the fuss was about. Before he knew it, he had ensconced himself comfortably into one of three plush loveseats (each one a different style and pattern) and a thick haze surrounded him. His eyelids felt heavier than when he had stayed up two nights in a row to practice for his O.W.L.s and he had no idea how long they had been sitting together. Amy had positioned herself on the other end of the seat and sat languidly with her legs draped over Draco's lap. He didn't particularly like it, but he found quickly that they closer he got to Amy the quieter Crissy became and that was a welcome change. He hated her accent and what Amy called _her southern charm_ just came off as ignorance with a smile.

"Do you have a girlfriend?" the question came out of nowhere and he stuttered for a moment before giving up answering altogether. Amy continued, "I've never seen you with anyone at all, no friends or family, and we've been here for nearly a month. Are you far from home too?"

The words swam lazily through the fog in his mind and he tried to make sense of them and form a cohesive answer. In the end all he could manage was, "Yes, I'm very terribly far from home."

"Well you can't be as far from home as we are, can you? I mean we both crossed an ocean and I crossed half a continent on top of that just to get here," Crissy said and he was struck right then by how bad at listening and comforting she was.

"Don't be stupid," he snapped. "how far you are from home has nothing to do with distance and everything to do with how long you must stay away from it. You could be down the block or across the street but if you can never go back you might as well be on opposite sides of the planet." What he had said was largely influenced by his wizarding concept of travel – distance genuinely was rarely an issue if at all, and the difference between believing you were somewhere and finding yourself there sat on either side of a very blurred line. The girls of course had no way of knowing or even comprehending his travel paradigm and took the statement as pure poetry.

"Wow," Crissy fawned. "That was beautiful, Drake! I can't believe that with looks and a mind like yours you don't have a girlfriend!" she leaned forward and rocked back unsteadily with her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She wasn't dowdy by any means; he just found her to be incorrigibly boring.

"Well isn't it obvious?" Amy perked up. "Are you gay, Draco?"

"What?" he wasn't sure if he was more shocked by the question or the invocation of his real name but nevertheless was rendered speechless.

"Don't tell me you don't know what 'Gay' means too," she laughed. He looked from girl to girl. Crissy had stopped her nauseating rocking and was rigidly glaring at her roommate.

"Yes, I know what Gay means," he trailed off without meeting either sets of foreign eyes. Instead he carefully studied the inseam of Amy's jeans. To be gay, he felt he must be attracted to men. He marked a mental check on that box. But sure as he was that the male figure was the only one that appeased him he had never in his life touched anyone aside from a woman. It had been clumsy though not disagreeable. Not really anyway. So in his silence he decided that he couldn't be absolutely sure that he was Gay until that day of trial (and possibly error) occurred. He could safely answer "no," to his audience. Just as he was about to answer however, Crissy felt the need to interject.

"Drake isn't like that, Amy, that was a terrible thing of you to ask," her voice shook with scorn as she chastised her peer. Her look was stern and her dark brows were furrowed furiously over her sky colored eyes. "First off that's a terrible way to treat a guest. I don't know what they try to pass as manners in New York but where I'm from that doesn't fly. Second, the Gay lifestyle is sinful in the eyes of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now I don't want to be forceful with my religion but that is something of a capital offense where I'm from. Lastly, I'm sure a good God-fearing guy like Drake would never chose a lifestyle of sin like that. I see you wake up early every morning and drag that heavy lookin' table out to do your job. That kind of work ethic takes the power of the Holy Spirit, that much has been proven!" she finished seemingly pleased with her argument. Draco wasn't sure which part of it was to blame for his response but after he started speaking he was certain he had picked the right path.

"Crissy, dear, do settle down." His formality drew both pairs of eyes back to him. This was appropriate, he thought, as he was the subject that had sparked the contention in the first place. He gladly took center stage having regained his element in verbal combat. "First off, you may not have noticed but you are hundreds of miles away from _where you're from_, and while it may surprise you, the laws and edicts of _your_ God don't apply universally. Second, do you see a cross around my neck?" she shook her head slow and the weight of the implication began to pull at her lips. "_I_ do not believe there is a God at all, let alone a Christian one. There is only power and," he paused thoughtfully, "and those strong enough or resourceful enough to take it. Occasionally we get lucky and it falls into good hands for some length of time. Lastly, one would never _choose_ to be Gay! What reason for that is there? To experience torment from one's peers and disownment from one's family. Who would wish to live as a social pariah for a good fuck?" His adversaries' ears burnt in a scarlet so bright that he could see them through the haze of the smoke filled room.

"They chose the Devil, with his tempting ways-"

"Well in that case I think you have a bad case of blaming the victim."

"God has given us all free will!" she sang triumphantly.

"Oh that's all fine and good, free will we are afforded but knowledge to make our choices we are forbidden?"

"The very knowledge of sin corrupts us! We need not partake to have sin upon our heads."

"The last time I checked, a leader who only allowed information that glorified him and his regime was also trying to hide something dark about himself. Besides, aren't they always going on about government transparency _where you're from_? I assure you once you open those doors you will find more sins in a day than in hell for an eternity. But I'm dreadfully tired of this subject and I wish it to reach a conclusion. So, to answer your question, Amy, yes, I am Gay." There was a tense pause in which Draco realized he had regained some of his sensibilities (though how long he had been there he could not fathom) and the consequences of his admission to his identity had started to sink in by the time the silence had been broken.

"I think you should leave," Crissy whispered. "I don't need your influence here." Without another word he rose to his feet, slightly aware and off balance, reached for his sweater and turned towards the door. _I'm gay_, he thought trying to get himself used to the strange association.

"Wait!" it was Amy's voice that called to him down the hallway as he tried to jimmy the door open. She ran up the hall and put her hand on his shoulder. "Is that why you can't go back home? I mean, why you're so far away as you put it?"

"Yes," he lied easily.

"I'm really sorry to've subjected you to that. It must've been really painful to go through that kind of thing again and I'm really sorry-"

"Don't worry," he placated, not wanting her to go into hysterics right there in the hall. He already felt exhausted from their earlier activities and wanted nothing more than to sleep. How these girls were managing to resist the urge to even settle down was beyond him, but then again most things female and deeply emotional were beyond him at that time. She must've been able to tell he was tired or at least short tempered because she hugged him lightly and told him he would see her the next day before running off to comfort her sobbing companion.

Looking down at Harry these memories came flooding down the rivulets of his conscious mind. The man had been kind to him since their fight. He had intended to gain his trust when he disclosed all that he had to Harry during their tiff with the cauldrons as well as emotional leverage. Standing over Harry now, however, it was as though his plan had been turned around on him. He felt so much closer to the other wizard and cursed himself repeatedly for his lapse in judgment. He had stepped too close to the man. He was as kind as the bum on the street whose name he had never taken the time to learn. He was nothing like the faceless guard of the Muggle malls who he had Confunded without consideration. He was as endearingly careless of formality as Amy. Draco found himself understanding why those around the simple boy had found him undeniably worthy of their time and in many cases, their lives. He demanded, without having to part his lips, honesty and loyalty, and Draco could no longer deny that his own propaganda had been thinly veiled truths.

Touching Harry's wrist, this time with a firm and steady hand, he stroked the beads of the bracelets and willed himself to feel their power. Nothing. Nothing at all. He sighed deeply and ensconced himself into the crook of Harry's arm. He would bring them up tomorrow and whether or not Harry found him trustworthy enough to use one of the bracelets, he would at least finally come to know why they possessed the powers that they did.

* * *

Thank you all for your patience in the adding of these two chapters. I have the 5th and 6th chapters finished but for the fact that I no longer have a word processor capable of spell check! It may be another few weeks before I have the equipment necessary. Until then, thank you for continuing to read, given my long stint of writers block/not having a whole lot of time.

Thanks are due to thebrunnetteone for the BETA! Without her, this whole thing would be a mess of grammatical errors and spelling disasters.


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